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GIFT  OF 
Albert  Bender 


THE  KASIDAH 

(COUPLETS) 

OF  hAjI  ABDU  EL-YEZDI: 

<^  LAY  OF  THE  HIGHER  LAJF 

TRANSLATED  AND  ANNOTATED 
BY  HIS  FRIEND  AND  PUPIL 

F.B. 

(SIR  RICHARD  F.  BURTON) 


>  >  J  >    •  . 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

THE  BOOK  CLUB  OF  CALIFORNIA 

MDCCCCXIX 


•\        *»,Jw        r 


Let  his  page 

Which  charms  the  chosen  spirits  of  the  age. 

Fold  itself  for  a  serener  clime 

Of  years  to  come,  and  find  its  recompense 

In  that  just  expeBation. 

Shelley. 

Let  them  laugh  at  ?ne for  speaking  of  things 
which  they  do  not  understand;  and  I  must  pity 
them  while  they  laugh  at  me. 

St.  Augustine. 


fU        A     #)^^t      De.de. 


Yo, 


INTRODUCTION 


.ou  who  would  read  this  "Lay  of  the  Higher  Law,"  what  seek  you  here  f  A  Persian 
poem  splendidwith  the  color  and  glamour  of  the  desert'?  A  statement  of  oriental  philosophy , 
such  as  the  title-page  promises?  A  spirit-child  of  fob  or  Koheleth ;  a  spirit-brother  of 
Omar-Khayyam  ?  Or  further  proof  of  the  many-sided  genius  of  Richard  Burton,  "Eng- 
land's brave  Burton,  dowered  of  sun  and  wind,"  who  left  among  the  three  score  volumes 
of  his  travels  and  translations  the  "Kasidah  of  Haj't  Abdu  El-Tezdi"  ?  Do  you  seek 
poet  or  philosopher,  Persian  or  Englishman? 

Be  warned,  that  if  you  find  none  of  these  in  entirety,  you  will  find  all  in  part. 

The  Kasidah  is  a  philosophic  poem,  written  in  rhymed  iambic  couplets,  to  which  Burton 
gives  the  name  of  Bahr  Tawil  [long  verse).  The  first  of  its  nine  seStions  is  descriptive, 
painting  with  living  colors  the  desert  and  the  waking  caravan  at  dawn.  The  next  four 
are  reminiscent  and  expository,  setting  forth:  the  emptiness  of  teaching  from  Moses  to 
Hiraz  and  Longfellow ;  the  brevity  of  man's  life  history;  the  inconsequence  of  religious 
creeds;  and  the  costliness  and  cruelty  which  have  marked  the  evolution  of  the  world  and 
the  creatures  living  on  it.  The  last  four  divisions  state  the  lessons  to  be  learned  from  the 
foregoing  summary  of  human  thought  and  aBion :  that  man  must  forever  be  willing  to 
learn,"  to  know  and  to  unknow" ;  that  reason  must  be  his  arbiter;  that  self-salvation 
through  self-expression  must  be  his  goal;  and  finally  that  of  life's  two  possible  paths, it  is 
not  the  primrose  path  of  dalliance  but  the  one  leading  to  daily  battle  with  ignorance  that 
is  worthy  a  man' s  journeying. 

Here  is  afascinating  mosaic  of  ideas  from  the  old  world  and  the  new, here  are  shreds  of  a 
hundred  philosophies,  quotations  from  a  score  of  poets,  bits  of  the  "ten  great  religions,"  and 
finally  here  is  the  voice  of  a  definite, fear  less  being  crying  down  all  false  gods  and  preach- 
ing a  gospel  of  self-reliance  and  endless  struggle  to  know  and  to  do.  Heterodox?  Yes. 
Materialistic?  Tes.  But  heterodox  in  an  effort  to  see  truth  with  clarity,  and  materialistic 
in  order  that  good  may  be  accomplished  in  the  present  and  not  dreamed  of  in  the  future. 


[iii] 


8M550 


INTRODUCTION 

The  voice  is  not  that  of  a  Persian,  Hdji  Abdu,  known  by  the  sobriquet,  Nabbiana, 
from  the  province  ofTezd,  but  the  voice  of  England's  greatest  traveller  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Richard  Burton  in  his  long,  unwearied  life  played  ntany  parts.  To  utilize  the 
materials  of  his  unique  intimacy  with  the  peoples  of  Asia  and  Africa,  and  to  wear  the 
mask  of  a  pilgrim  of  the  East  as  he  writes  a  poetic  handbook  of  philosophy,  was  certainly 
less  dangerous,  if  not  less  dificult,  than  to  penetrate  to  Mohammed' s  shrine  as  a  Moslem 
merchant,  to  sell  goods  as  a  bazaar  owner  and  learn  the  secrets  of  Karachi,  to  treat  ill- 
nesses as  a  Greek  doBor,  and  be  in  turn  a  dervise,  a  Pathan  Hakim,  or  Arab  shaykh. 
The  writing  of  some  such  poem,  decrying  the  purblind  thinking  and  narrow  prejudices 
of  his  contemporaries,  had  been  in  Burton' s  mind  as  early  as  his  first  return  to  England 
from  Sind  in  1 8^^.  But  it  was  not  completed  until  1880,  when  it  was  privately  printed 
by  ^aritch,  a  hundred  copies,  of  which  nearly  half  were  returned  unsold  to  the  author. 
Nor  was  it  again  printed  until  Lady  Burton  wrote  her  husband's  life  in  l8<pj. 

Throughout,  the  Kasidah  is  remarkable  for  its  eloquence  and  colorful  imagery.  As  poetry 
its  music  is  sometimes  dissonant.  As  philosophy  it  is  desultory  and  its  arguments  not  with- 
out contradiBion.  As  aproduB  of  the  genius  of  Richard  Burton,  it  is  a  precious  human 
docutnent.  It  has  a  manly,  marching  vigor  that  compels  admiration  in  lines  where  mono- 
syllabic Anglo-Saxon  words  often  predominate : 

"  T)o  what  thy  manhood  bids  thee  do,  from  none  but  selfexpe£t  applause; 
He  noblest  lives  and  noblest  dies  who  makes  and  keeps  his  self-made  laws. 
All  other  life  is  living  death,  a  world  where  none  but  Phantoms  dwell, 
A  breath,  a  wind,  a  sound,  a  voice,  a  tinkling  of  the  camel-bell." 

It  has  the  same  manliness  and  ruthless  vigor  in  treating  confiiBing  modes  of  thought 

and  in  sending  flying  what  are  in  Emersonian  parlance  "the  half-gods,"  that  Burton  may 

ereB  in  their  stead  ideals  real  and  true.  We  remember  Tennyson '  s  plea,  thirty  years  before 

the  Kasidah  saw  the  light: 

"  ^here  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt. 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds." 

We  remember  the  increasing  recognition  of  the  individual,  which  the  thirty  years  succeed- 
ing the  writing  of  the  Kasidah  has  brought  about,  and  we  agree  with  Burton's  assur- 
ance that: 

"  In  Days  to  come.  Days  slow  to  dawn,  when  Wisdom  deigns  to  dwell  with  men, 
'These  echoes  of  a  voice  long  stilled  haply  shall  wake  responsive  strain." 


[iv] 


INTRODUCTION 

Certainly  ytnore  and  more, is  individual  honesty  of  opinion  given  its  human  place  and  value 
without  apology.  Theories  of  pessimistic  negation  find  congenial  soil  in  human  minds  too 
rarely  to  threaten  a  strangling  growth.  They  are  discussed,  if  not  more  cordially,  at  least 
less  fearfully,  than  by  the  average  reader  of  Burton' s  day. 

Men  of  the  desert  wrought  out  much  of  that  we  call  Judaism  and  Christianity.  Even 
the  western  mind  loses  its  restlessness  and  attains  repose  in  the  solemn  quiet  of  the  desert. 
Upon  the  most  adventurous  and  dramatic  of  English  travellers,  the  desert  exercised  its 
eternal  charm.  Naturally,  then, from  the  vastness  and  mystery  of  the  desert,  the  Kasidah 
takes  its  chief  beauty.  There  is  elevation  of  mood  in  an  allegory  which  shows  the  transient 
life  of  man  in  the  unmapped  universe  as  a  caravan  passing  through  the  uncharted  desert, 
"beyond  the  thin  blue  line  that  rims  the  far  horizon-ring."  There  is  loveliness  in  the  deep 
desert  night  luminous  with  stars;  in  the  dawn  "where  Golden  gates  swing  right  and  left"; 
in  the  "  brief  gladness  of  Palms,"  the  "  refreshment  of  welling  spring  and  rushing  rain" 
in  the  "tinkling  of  the  camels  bells."  There  is  grandeur  in  the  "drear  wastes  of  sea-born 
land"  and  the  unmeasured  silences. 

The  Kasidah  ofHdji  Abdu  is  not  a  translation.  It  is  written  by  an  Englishman  whose 
habits  of  life  were  orientalized  by  eastern  experience,  whose  tongue  spoke  lovingly  eastern 
speech,  and  whose  mind  was  furnished  with  the  world-old  literatures  of  eastern  lands. 

The  Rubdiydt  of  Omar  Khayyam,  known  to  English  readers,  is  a  condensed  version  of 
a  Persian  poem,  its  hundred  perfeB  quatrains  being  the  quintessential  part  of  four  times 
their  original  number.  Edward  Fitzgerald  was  so  great  a  literary  artist,  that  the  trans- 
lation becomes  his  own  poetic  tapestry  with  its  nightingales,  its  roses,  and  its  "cypress 
slender  minister  of  wine."  In  exquisite  images  Omar  asks  God  to  prove  his  good  intent 
toward  man,  and  hearing  no  answer,  the  eastern  pessimist  turns  contentedly  to  the  verse, 
the  song,  and  the  wine  of  his  earthly  Paradise.  Burton's  poem  is  often  compared  with 
Fitzgerald's,  but  they  have  of  content  and  form  little  in  common.  The  Kasidah  is  in- 
debted to  the  Rubdiydt  for  a  dozen  oft-quoted  lines  and  phrases,  but  its  philosophy  is  out- 
wardly a  contradiBion  of  the  tent-maker's.  Burton  sums  up  the  accumulated  wisdom  of 
the  world  to  cast  it  aside,  and  then  passionately  challenges  each  man  to  be  his  own  seeker 
after  truth. 

Were  the  Kasidah  a  poem  less  uneven  in  its  inspiration,  it  might  claim  some  kinship 
with  Kobe  let  h.  The  melancholy  of  the  kingly  cynic  environed  by  the  narrow  horizon  of 


[v] 


INTRODUCTION 

the  ancient  Mediterranean  world  is  prof ounder  than  that  of  Burton.  The  modern  English- 
man,busied  always^^in  going  to  and  fro  in  the  earth"  is  never  melancholy  for  long.  His 
zest  for  life  is  too  keen.  Creation  is  ever  widening  to  his  eager  view.  His  unappeasable 
curiosity  about  tnan  dispels  sadness  and  rouses  him  to  aBion.  Besides,  he  boyishly  loved 
by  his  sayings  and  writings  to  give  scandal  to  pious  souls,  and  took  so  much  satisfa£iion 
in  this,  as  well  as  in  his  energetic  iconoclasm,  that  despair  could  only  momentarily  possess 
his  soul.  But  as  poetry  can  we  compare  the  abysmal  dejeBion  of  Koheleth'  s  cry  of"  Vanity 
of  Vanities"  with  Burton  s  "I've  tried  them  all,  I  find  them  all  so  same  and  tame,  so 
drear,  so  dry"  ?  The  Hebraic  "  Whatsoever  thy  hand findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might" 
is  somewhat  in  the  strain  of  Burton' s  vigorous  advice  to  try  "the  unpaid  toils  and  pains 
that  make  the  man  to  manhood  true."  To  both  writers,  work  as  expressing  man' s  self  is 
the  only  worthy  compensation  for  living. 

Is  the  Kasidah  akin  to  Job?  No.  The  literary  power  of  the  Hebraic  classic,  with  its 
vivid  charaBerization,  the  dramatic  intensity  of  its  dialogue,  and  the  sustained  magnifi- 
cence of  its  imagery,  make  comparison  ii7ipossible. 

Despite  a  memory  stored  with  poetic  lore  and  an  eye  for  earthly  beauty.  Burton  as  a 
poet  lacks  delicacy  of  ear:  "horrid  hill  aiid  glootny  glen"  and  "ghostly,  ghastly  dream." 
He  lacks  distinBion  of  style:  "  My  gorge  ariseth  at  the  thought,  I  commune  with  myself 
and  cry."  He  lacks  a  kind  of  humor  of  language  when, forgetting  the  familiar  connotation 
of  words  he  tries  to  lift  them  from  the  comedy  of  nursery  tale  into  the  tragedy  of  Mansur'  s 
death :  "And  though  his  blood  a  witness  bore,  no  wisdom-might  could  mend  his  bones." 

Richard  Burton  had  been  born  in  the  faith  of  the  Church  of  England.  He  was  a  youth 
in  the  years  that  saw  modern  science  make  the  universe  anew  with  the  ministrations  of 
Darwin,  Wallace,  Spencer,  and  Huxley.  As  a  dweller  in  the  Orient  he  became  a  Mo- 
hammedan adept,  and  then  a  master  Sufi  with  something  of  Buddhistic  cynicism.  That  he 
never  evolved  a  complete  and  coherent  philosophy  of  life  is  proved  not  only  by  the  Kasidah 
but  by  thefaBs  of  his  personal  life.  As  a  student  of  religions  and  speBator  of  ceremonials 
in  widely  scattered  temples  frotn  Somaliland  to  Salt  Lake  City,  he  grew  to  have  an  anthro- 
pologist's view  of  religion,  and  narrowed  his  own  creed  to  that  of  rational  conduB.  He 
believed  in  work  for  every  man.  He  believed  in  work  for  himself,  as  his  uiitiring  travels 
and  half  a  hundred  volumes  show.  He  was  fond  of  quoting  Pope:  "He  can't  be  wrong 
whose  life  is  in  the  right."  He  was  faithful  to  his  family  motto,  "Honor,  not  honors." 


[vi] 


INTRODUCTION 

In  a  word,  then,  the  Kasidah  is  a  poem  philosophically  inclusive,  but  not  conclusive. 
The  promise  of  Hdji  Abdu  El-Tezdi  is  fulfilled  in  the  line:  "  To  seek  the  truth,  to  glad 
the  heart,  such  is  the  life  of  the  Higher  Law." 

Because  Richard  Burton  loved  with  the  passion  of  its  own  child,  the  scent  and  savor 
of  the  Orient,  because  he  brought  to  England  the  fruits  of  his  tireless  research  and  un- 
selfish endeavor,  because  the  Kasidah  is  part  of  the  literary  heritage  left  by  this  most 
versatile  linguist,  ethnologist,  traveller  and  writer,  I  quote  as  most  befitting  his  varied 
achievements  the  stately  praise  of  his  friend,  an  Algerine  exile  in  Damascus,  Abd  el 
Kadir:"  Allah  favor  the  days  of  your  far-famed  learning,  O  wader  of  the  sea  of  knowl- 
edge, O  cistern  of  learning  of  our  globe,  exalted  above  his  age,  whose  exaltation  is  above  the 
mountains  of  increase  and  our  rising  place,  opener  by  his  books  of  day  and  night,  traveller 
by  ship  and  foot  and  horse." 

With  these  words  I  commend  to  the  reader  the  Kasidah  of  Hdji  Abdu  El-Tezdi. 

AuRELiA  Henry  Reinhardt. 

Mills  College.  Nov.  14,  igiQ. 


[vii] 


TO  THE  READER 

The  Translator  has  ventured  to  entitle  a  ^^Lay  of  the 
Higher  Law  "  the  following  Composition,  which  aims  at 
being  in  advance  of  its  time;  and  he  has  not  feared  the 
danger  of  collision  with  such  unpleasant  forms  as  the 
^■^  Higher  Culture.' '  Theprindples  which  justify  the  name 
are  as  follows : — 

The  Author  asserts  that  Happiness  and  Misery  are 
equally  divided  and  distributed  in  the  world. 

He  makes  Self  cultivation,  with  due  regard  to  others, 
the  sole  and  sufficient  objeSi  of  human  life. 

He  suggests  that  the  affeBions,  the  sympathies  and  the 
^'' divine  gift  of  Pity''  are  man's  highest  enjoyments. 

He  advocates  suspension  of  judgment,  with  a  proper 
suspicion  of^^Fa8is,the  idlest  of  superstitions." 

Finally,  although  destructive  to  appearance,  he  is  es- 
sentially reconstruSiive. 

For  other  details  concerning  the  Poem  and  the  Poet, 
the  curious  reader  is  referred  to  the  end  of  the  volume, 

F.B. 

Vienna.  Nov.l88o. 


ffWMHHffHBBByfflTPplHHri  -     ^gMrtHJWTWBIHWf'i'''^'''"^'^"^ 

^^^ 

^H 

^^^ 

^^^s 

i^K 

^^S 

^^^ 

^^m 

THE  KASIDAH  I. 


I. 


A  HE  hour  is  nigh ;  the  waning  Queen  walks  forth  to  rule  the  later  night; 
Crown'd  with  the  sparkle  of  a  Star,  and  throned  on  orb  of  ashen  light : 

II. 

The  Wolf-tail'  sweeps  the  paling  East  to  leave  a  deeper  gloom  behind, 
And  Dawn  uprears  her  shining  head,  sighing  with  semblance  of  a  wind : 

in. 

The  highlands  catch  yon  Orient  gleam,  while  purpling  still  the  lowlands  lie ; 
And  pearly  mists,  the  morning-pride,  soar  incense-like  to  greet  the  sky. 

IV. 

The  horses  neigh,  the  camels  groan,  the  torches  gleam,  the  cressets  flare ; 
The  town  of  canvas  falls,  and  man  with  din  and  dint  invadeth  air : 

V. 

The  Golden  Gates  swing  right  and  left;  up  springs  the  Sun  with  flamy  brow; 
The  dew-cloud  melts  in  gush  of  light ;  brown  Earth  is  bathed  in  morning-glow. 

VI. 

Slowly  they  wind  athwart  the  wild,  and  while  young  Day  his  anthem  swells, 
Sad  falls  upon  my  yearning  ear  the'  tinkling  of  the  Camel-bells : 

VII. 

O'er  fiery  wastes  and  frozen  wold,  o'er  horrid  hill  and  gloomy  glen. 

The  home  of  grisly  beast  and  Ghoul,*  the  haunts  of  wilder,  grislier  men ;  — 

VIII. 

With  the  brief  gladness  of  the  Palms,  that  tower  and  sway  o'er  seething  plain. 
Fraught  with  the  thoughts  of  rustling  shade,  and  welling  spring,  and  rushing  rain ; 


'  The  False  Dawn. 

»  The  Demon  of  the  Desert. 


[H 


THEKASIDAH 

IX. 

With  the  short  solace  of  the  ridge,  by  gentle  zephyrs  played  upon, 
Whose  breezy  head  and  bosky  side  front  seas  of  cooly  celadon ;  — 

X. 

'Tis  theirs  to  pass  with  joy  and  hope,  whose  souls  shall  ever  thrill  and  fill 
Dreams  of  the  Birthplace  and  the  Tomb, — visions  of  Allah's  Holy  Hill.' 

XI. 

But  we  ?  Another  shift  of  scene,  another  pang  to  rack  the  heart ; 

Why  meet  we  on  the  bridge  of  Time  to  'change  one  greeting  and  to  part? 

XII. 

We  meet  to  part ;  yet  asks  my  sprite.  Part  we  to  meet  ?  Ah !  is  it  so  ? 

Man's  fancy-made  Omniscience  knows,  who  made  Omniscience  nought  can  know. 

XIII. 

Why  must  we  meet,  why  must  we  part,  why  must  we  bear  this  yoke  of  MUST, 
Without  our  leave  or  askt  or  given,  by  tyrant  Fate  on  vidim  thrust  ? 

XIV, 

That  Eve  so  gay,  so  bright,  so  glad,  this  Morn  so  dim,  and  sad,  and  grey ; 
Strange  that  life's  Registrar  should  write  this  day  a  day,  that  day  a  day ! 

XV. 

Mine  eyes,  my  brain,  my  heart,  are  sad, —  sad  is  the  very  core  of  me ; 
All  wearies,  changes,  passes,  ends;  alas!  the  Birthday's  injury  ! 

XVI. 

Friends  of  my  youth,  a  last  adieu !  haply  some  day  we  meet  again ; 

Yet  ne'er  the  selfsame  men  shall  meet ;  the  years  shall  make  us  other  men : 

XVII. 

The  light  of  morn  has  grown  to  noon,  has  paled  with  eve,  and  now  farewell ! 
Go,  vanish  from  my  Life  as  dies  the  tinkling  of  the  Camel's  bell. 


■  Arafat,  near  Mecca. 

[2] 


THE  KASIDAH  II. 

T  ' 

An  these  drear  wastes  of  sea-born  land,  these  wilds  where  none  may  dwell  but  He, 
What  visionary  Pasts  revive,  what  process  of  the  Years  we  see : 

II. 

Gazing  beyond  the  thin  blue  line  that  rims  the  far  horizon-ring. 

Our  sadden'd  sight  why  haunt  these  ghosts,  whence  do  these  spedral  shadows  spring  ? 

III. 

What  endless  questions  vex  the  thought,  of  Whence  and  Whither,  When  and  How? 
What  fond  and  foolish  strife  to  read  the  Scripture  writ  on  human  brow ; 

IV. 

As  stand  we  percht  on  point  of  Time,  betwixt  the  two  Eternities, 

Whose  awful  secrets  gathering  round  with  black  profound  oppress  our  eyes. 

V. 

"  This  gloomy  night,  these  grisly  waves,  these  winds  and  whirlpools  loud  and  dread : 
What  reck  they  of  our  wretched  plight  who  Safety's  shores  so  lightly  tread?" 

VI. 

Thus  quoth  the  Bard  of  Love  and  Wine,'  whose  dream  of  Heaven  ne'er  could  rise 
Beyond  the  brimming  Kausar-cup  and  Houris  with  the  white-black  eyes; 

VII. 

Ah  me !  my  race  of  threescore  years  is  short,  but  long  enough  to  pall 
My  sense  with  joyless  joys  as  these,  with  Love  and  Houris, Wine  and  all. 

VIII. 

Another  boasts  he  would  divorce  old  barren  Reason  from  his  bed, 

And  wed  the  Vine-maid  in  her  stead ; — fools  who  believe  a  word  he  said !  * 

■  Haiiz  of  Shiraz. 

*  Omar-i-Kayyam,  the  tent-maker  poet  of  Persia. 

[3j 


THE  KASIDAH 

IX. 

And  "'Dust  thou  art  to  dust  returning,'  ne'er  was  spoke  of  human  soul" 
The  Soofi  cries, 'tis  well  for  him  that  hath  such  gift  to  ask  its  goal. 

X. 

"And  this  is  all,  for  this  we  're  born  to  weep  a  little  and  to  die ! " 
So  sings  the  shallow  bard  whose  life  still  labours  at  the  letter  "  I." 

XI. 

"  Ear  never  heard.  Eye  never  saw  the  bliss  of  those  who  enter  in 
My  heavenly  kingdom,"  Isa  said,  who  wailed  our  sorrows  and  our  sin : 

XII. 

Too  much  of  words  or  yet  too  few !  What  to  thy  Godhead  easier  than 
One  little  glimpse  of  Paradise  to  ope  the  eyes  and  ears  of  man  ? 

XIII. 

"  I  am  the  Truth !  I  am  the  Truth !  "  we  hear  the  God-drunk  gnostic  cry 
"  The  microcosm  abides  in  ME ;  Eternal  Allah 's  nought  but  I ! " 

XIV. 

Mansur'  was  wise,  but  wiser  they  who  smote  him  with  the  hurled  stones ; 
And,  though  his  blood  a  witness  bore,  no  wisdom-might  could  mend  his  bones. 

XV. 

"  Eat,  drink,  and  sport ;  the  rest  of  life 's  not  worth  a  fillip,"  quoth  the  King ; 
Methinks  the  saying  saith  too  much  ^  the  swine  would  say  the  selfsame  thing ! 

XVI. 

Two-footed  beasts  that  browse  through  life,  by  Death  to  serve  as  soil  design' d, 
Bow  prone  to  Earth  whereof  they  be,  and  there  the  proper  pleasures  find : 

XVII. 

But  you  of  finer,  nobler  stuff,  ye,  whom  to  Higher  leads  the  High, 

What  binds  your  hearts  in  common  bond  with  creatures  of  the  stall  and  sty  ? 

XVIII. 

"  In  certain  hope  of  Life-to-come  I  journey  through  this  shifting  scene" 
The  Zahid*  snarls  and  saunters  down  his  Vale  of  Tears  with  confi'dent  mien. 


"A  famous  Mystic  stoned  for  blasphemy. 
»  The  ' '  Philister  "  of  "  respeftable  ' '  belief. 


[4] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XIX. 

Wiser  than  Amran's  Son'  art  thou,  who  ken'st  so  well  the  world-to-be, 
The  Future  when  the  Past  is  not,  the  Present  merest  dreamery ; 

XX. 

What  know'st  thou,  man,  of  Life  ?  and  yet,  forever  twixt  the  womb,  the  grave. 
Thou  pratest  of  the  Coming  Life,  of  Heav'n  and  Hell  thou  fain  must  rave. 

XXI. 

The  world  is  old  and  thou  art  young ;  the  world  is  large  and  thou  art  small ; 
Cease,  atom  of  a  moment's  span,  to  hold  thyself  an  All-in- All ! 


'  Moses  in  the  Koran. 

[5] 


THE  KASIDAH  III. 

IE,  fie !  you  visionary  things,  ye  motes  that  dance  in  sunny  glow. 
Who  base  and  build  Eternities  on  briefest  moment  here  below ; 

II. 
Who  pass  through  Life  liked  caged  birds,  the  captives  of  a  despot  will ; 
Still  wond'ring  How  and  When  and  Why,  and  Whence  and  Whither,  wond'ring  still ; 

III. 
Still  wond'ring  how  the  Marvel  came  because  two  coupling  mammals  chose 
To  slake  the  thirst  of  fleshly  love,  and  thus  the  "  Immortal  Being  "  rose ; 

IV. 

Wond'ring  the  Babe  with  staring  eyes,  perforce  compel'd  from  night  to  day, 
Gript  in  the  giant  grasp  of  Life  like  gale-born  dust  or  wind-wrung  spray ; 

v. 
Who  comes  imbecile  to  the  world 'mid  double  danger,  groans,  and  tears; 
The  toy,  the  sport,  the  waif  and  stray  of  passions,  error,  wrath  and  fears ; 

VI. 

Who  knows  not  Whence  he  came  nor  Why,  who  kens  not  Whither  bound  and  When, 
Yet  such  is  Allah's  choicest  gift,  the  blessing  dreamt  by  foolish  men ; 

VII. 

Who  step  by  step  perforce  returns  to  couthless  youth,  wan,  white  and  cold, 
Lisping  again  his  broken  words  till  all  the  tale  be  fully  told : 

VIII. 

Wond'ring  the  Babe  with  quenched  orbs,  an  oldster  bow'd  by  burthening  years, 
How 'scaped  the  skiff  an  hundred  storms;  how 'scaped  the  thread  a  thousand  shears; 


[6] 


THE  KASIDAH 

IX. 

How  coming  to  the  Feast  unhid,  he  found  the  gorgeous  table  spread 

With  the  fair-seeming  Sodom-fruit,  with  stones  that  bear  the  shape  of  bread : 

X. 

How  Life  was  nought  but  ray  of  sun  that  clove  the  darkness  thick  and  blind, 
The  ravings  of  the  reckless  storm,  the  shrieking  of  the  rav'ening  wind ; 

XI. 

How  lovely  visions 'guiled  his  sleep,  aye  fading  with  the  break  of  morn, 
Till  every  sweet  became  a  sour,  till  every  rose  became  a  thorn ; 

XII. 

Till  dust  and  ashes  met  his  eyes  wherever  turned  their  saddened  gaze ; 
The  wrecks  of  joys  and  hopes  and  loves,  the  rubbish  of  his  wasted  days ; 

XIII. 

How  every  high  heroic  Thought  that  longed  to  breathe  empyrean  air, 
Failed  of  its  feathers,  fell  to  earth,  and  perisht  of  a  sheer  despair ; 

XIV. 

How,  dower'd  with  heritage  of  brain,  whose  might  has  split  the  solar  ray. 
His  rest  is  grossest  coarsest  earth,  a  crown  of  gold  on  brow  of  clay; 

XV. 

This  House  whose  frame  be  flesh  and  bone,  mortar'd  with  blood  and  faced  with  skin, 
The  home  of  sickness,  dolours,  age ;  unclean  without,  impure  within : 

XVI. 

Sans  ray  to  cheer  its  inner  gloom,  the  chambers  haunted  by  the  Ghost, 
Darkness  his  name,  a  cold  dumb  Shade  stronger  than  all  the  heav'nly  host. 

XVII. 

This  tube,  an  enigmatic  pipe,  whose  end  was  laid  before  begun. 

That  lengthens,  broadens,  shrinks  and  breaks;  —  puzzle,  machine,  automaton; 

XVIII. 

The  first  of  Pots  the  Potter  made  by  Chrysorrhoas'  blue-green  wave;' 
Methinks  I  see  him  smile  to  see  what  guerdon  to  the  world  he  gave ! 

•  The  Abana,  the  River  of  Damascus. 

[7]     •       ■ 


THE  KASIDAH 

v 

XIX. 

How  Life  is  dim,  unreal,  vain,  like  scenes  that  round  the  drunkard  reel ; 
How  "  Being  "  meaneth  not  to  be ;  to  see  and  hear,  smell,  taste  and  feel. 

XX. 

A  drop  in  Ocean's  boundless  tide,  unfathom'd  waste  of  agony; 
Where  millions  live  their  horrid  lives  by  making  other  millions  die. 

XXI. 

How  with  a  heart  that  would  through  love,  to  Universal  Love  aspire, 
Man  woos  infernal  chance  to  smite,  as  Min'arets  draw  the  Thunder-fire. 

XXII. 

How  Earth  on  Earth  builds  tow'er  and  wall,  to  crumble  at  a  touch  of  Time; 
How  Earth  on  Earth  from  Shinar-plain  the  heights  of  Heaven  fain  would  climb. 

XXIII. 

How  short  this  Life,  how  long  withal ;  how  false  its  weal,  how  true  its  woes, 
This  fever-fit  with  paroxysms  to  mark  its  opening  and  its  close. 

XXIV. 

Ah !  gay  the  day  with  shine  of  sun,  and  bright  the  breeze,  and  blithe  the  throng 
Met  on  the  River-bank  to  play,  when  I  was  young,  when  I  was  young : 

XXV. 

Such  general  joy  could  never  fade ;  and  yet  the  chilling  whisper  came 

One  face  had  paled,  one  form  had  failed ;  had  fled  the  bank,  had  swum  the  stream ; 

XXVI, 

Still  revellers  danced,  and  sang,  and  trod  the  hither  bank  of  Time's  deep  tide, 
Still  one  by  one  they  left  and  fared  to  the  far  misty  thither  side ; 

XXVII. 

And  now  the  last  hath  slipt  away  yon  drear  Death-desert  to  explore. 
And  now  one  Pilgrim  worn  and  lorn  still  lingers  on  the  lonely  shore. 

XXVIII. 

Yes,  Life  in  youth-tide  standeth  still;  in  Manhood  streameth  soft  and  slow; 
See,  as  it  nears  the  'abysmal  goal  how  fleet  the  waters  flash  and  flow! 


[8] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XXIX. 

And  Deaths  are  twain ;  the  Deaths  we  see  drop  like  the  leaves  in  windy  Fall ; 
But  ours,  our  own,  are  ruined  worlds,  a  globe  collapst,  last  end  of  all. 

XXX. 

We  live  our  lives  with  rogues  and  fools,  dead  and  alive,  alive  and  dead. 

We  die  'twixt  one  who  feels  the  pulse  and  one  who  frets  and  clouds  the  head: 

XXXI. 

And, —  oh,  the  Pity !  — hardly  conned  the  lesson  comes  its  fatal  term; 
Fate  bids  us  bundle  up  our  books,  and  bear  them  bod'ily  to  the  worm : 

XXXII. 

Hardly  we  learn  to  wield  the  blade  before  the  wrist  grows  stiff  and  old ; 
Hardly  we  learn  to  ply  the  pen  ere  Thought  and  Fancy  faint  with  cold : 

XXXIII. 

Hardly  we  find  the  path  of  love,  to  sink  the  Self,  forget  the  "  I," 
When  sad  suspicion  grips  the  heart,  when  Man,  the  Man,  begins  to  die : 

XXXIV. 

Hardly  we  scale  the  wisdom-heights,  and  sight  the  Pisgah-scene  around. 

And  breathe  the  breath  of  heav'enly  air,  and  hear  the  Spheres'  harmonious  sound ; 

XXXV. 

When  swift  the  Camel-rider  spans  the  howling  waste,  by  Kismet  sped. 
And  of  his  Magic  Wand  a  wave  hurries  the  quick  to  join  the  dead." 

XXXVI. 

How  sore  the  burden,  strange  the  strife ;  how  full  of  splendour,  wonder,  fear ; 
Life,  atom  of  that  Infinite  Space  that  stretcheth  'twixt  the  Here  and  There. 

XXXVII. 

How  Thought  is  imp'otent  to  divine  the  secret  which  the  gods  defend. 
The  Why  of  birth  and  life  and  death,  that  Isis-veil  no  hand  may  rend. 

XXXVIII. 

Eternal  Morrows  make  our  Day;  our  is  is  aye  to  be  till  when 

Night  closes  in ;  'tis  all  a  dream,  and  yet  we  die,— and  then  and  THEN  ? 

■  Death  in  Arabia  rides  a  Camel,  not  a  pale  hone. 

[9] 


THEKASIDAH 

XXXIX. 

And  still  the  Weaver  plies  his  loom,  whose  warp  and  woof  is  wretched  Man 
Weaving  th'  unpattern'd  dark  design,  so  dark  we  doubt  it  owns  a  plan. 

XL. 

Dost  not,  O  Maker,  blush  to  hear,  amid  the  storm  of  tears  and  blood, 
Man  say  Thy  mercy  made  what  is,  and  saw  the  made  and  said  'twas  good  ? 

XLI. 

The  marvel  is  that  man  can  smile  dreaming  his  ghostly  ghastly  dream ;  — 
Better  the  heedless  atomy  that  buzzes  in  the  morning  beam ! 

XLII. 

O  the  dread  pathos  of  our  lives !  how  durst  thou,  Allah,  thus  to  play 
With  Love,  AfFediion,  Friendship,  all  that  shows  the  god  in  mortal  clay  ? 

XLIII. 

But  ah!  what  'vaileth  man  to  mourn ;  shall  tears  bring  forth  what  smiles  ne'er  brought ; 
Shall  brooding  breed  a  thought  of  joy  ?  Ah  hush  the  sigh,  forget  the  thought! 

XLIV. 

Silence  thine  immemorial  quest,  contain  thy  nature's  vain  complaint 

None  heeds,  none  cares  for  thee  or  thine ;  —  like  thee  how  many  came  and  went  ? 

XLV. 

Cease,  Man,  to  mourn,  to  weep,  to  wail ;  enjoy  thy  shining  hour  of  sun ; 
We  dance  along  Death's  icy  brink,  but  is  the  dance  less  full  of  fun  ? 


[lo] 


THE  KASIDAH  IV. 


What  Truths  hath  gleaned  that  Sage  consumed  by  many  a  moon  that  waxt  and  waned  ?    , 
What  Prophet-strain  be  his  to  sing  ?  What  hath  his  old  Experience  gained  ? 


11. 


There  is  no  God,  no  man-made  God ;  a  bigger,  stronger,  crueller  man ; 
Black  phantom  of  our  baby-fears,  ere  Thought,  the  life  of  Life,  began. 


III. 


Right  quoth  the  Hindu  Prince  of  old,'  "As  Ishwara  for  one  I  nill, 
Th'  almighty  everlasting  Good  who  cannot  'bate  th'  Eternal  ill : " 


IV. 


'  Your  gods  may  be,  what  shows  they  are?"  Hear  China's  Perfed:  Sage  declare  ;= 
'And  being,  what  to  us  be  they  who  dwell  so  darkly  and  so  far?" 


"All  matter  hath  a  birth  and  death ;  'tis  made,  unmade  and  made  anew; 
"We  choose  to  call  the  Maker  '  God'— such  is  the  Zahid's  owly  view. 


VI. 


You  changeful  finite  Creatures  strain"  (rejoins  the  Drawer  of  the  Wine  )3 
•  The  dizzy  depths  of  Infinite  Power  to  fathom  with  your  foot  of  twine ; " 


VII. 


"  Poor  idols  of  man's  heart  and  head  with  the  Divine  Idea  to  blend ; 

"To  preach  as  'Nature's  Common  Course' what  any  hour  may  shift  or  end." 


VIII. 


"  How  shall  the  Shown  pretend  to  ken  aught  of  the  Showman  or  the  Show  ? 
"Why  meanly  bargain  to  believe, which  only  means  thou  ne'er  canst  know? 


■  Buddha. 

»  Confucius. 

I  The  Soofi  or  Gnostic  opposed  to  the  Zahid. 


[I^ 


THE  KASIDAH 

IX. 

"  How  may  the  passing  Now  contain  the  standing  Now  —  Eternity  ? — 
"An  endless  is  without  a  was,  the  be  and  never  the  to-be? 

X. 

"  Who  made  your  Maker  ?  If  Self-made,  why  fare  so  far  to  fare  the  worse 
"  Sufficeth  not  a  world  of  worlds,  a  self-made  chain  of  universe  ? 

XI. 

"  Grant  an  Idea,  Primal  Cause,  the  Causing  Cause,  why  crave  for  more  ? 

"  Why  strive  its  depth  and  breadth  to  mete,  to  trace  its  work,  its  aid  to  'implore  ? 

XII. 

"  Unknown,  Incomprehensible,  what  e'er  you  choose  to  call  it,  call ; 
"  But  leave  it  vague  as  airy  space,  dark  in  its  darkness  mystical, 

XIII. 

"  Your  childish  fears  would  seek  a  Sire,  by  the  non-human  God  defin'd, 

"  What  your  five  wits  may  wot  ye  weet ;  what  is  you  please  to  dub  '  design'd ; ' 

XIV. 

"  You  bring  down  Heav'n  to  vulgar  Earth ;  your  Maker  like  yourselves  you  make, 
"  You  quake  to  own  a  reign  of  Law,  you  pray  the  Law  its  laws  to  break ; 

XV. 

"You  pray,  but  hath  your  thought  e'er  weighed  how  empty  vain  the  prayer  must  be, 
"  That  begs  a  boon  already  giv'en,  or  craves  a  change  of  Law  to  see  ? 

XVI. 

"  Say,  Man,  deep  learned  in  the  Scheme  that  orders  mysteries  sublime, 
"  How  came  it  this  was  Jesus,  that  was  Judas  from  the  birth  of  Time  ? 

XVII. 

"  How  I  the  tiger,  thou  the  lamb ;  again  the  Secret,  prithee,  show 

"Who  slew  the  slain,  bowman  or  bolt  or  Fate  that  drave  the  man,  the  bow? 

XVIII. 

"  Man  worships  self:  his  God  is  Man ;  the  struggling  of  the  mortal  mind 
"To  form  its  model  as  'twould  be,  the  perfedl  of  itself  to  find. 


[12] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XIX. 

"  The  God  became  sage,  priest  and  scribe  where  Nilus'  serpent  made  the  vale ; 
"  A  gloomy  Brahm  in  glowing  Ind,  a  neutral  something  cold  and  pale : 

XX. 

"  Amid  the  high  Chaldean  hills  a  moulder  of  the  heavenly  spheres ; 
"  On  Guebre  steppes  the  Timeless-God  who  governs  by  his  dual  peers : 

XXI. 

"  In  Hebrew  tents  the  Lord  that  led  His  leprous  slaves  to  fight  and  jar ; 
"  Yahveh/  Adon  or  Elohim,  the  God  that  smites,  the  Man  of  War. 

XXII. 

"  The  lovely  Gods  of  lib'ertine  Greece,  those  fair  and  frail  humanities 

"  Whose  homes  o'erlook'd  the  Middle  Sea,  where  all  Earth's  beauty  cradled  lies, 

XXIII. 

"  Ne'er  left  its  blessed  bounds,  nor  sought  the  barb'arous  climes  of  barb'arous  gods 
"  Where  Odin  of  the  dreary  North  o'er  hog  and  sickly  mead-cup  nods : 

XXIV. 

"  And  when,  at  length, '  Great  Pan  is  dead '  uprose  the  loud  and  dol'orous  cry 
"  A  glamour  wither'd  on  the  ground,  a  splendour  faded  in  the  sky. 

XXV. 

"  Yea,  Pan  was  dead,  the  Nazar'ene  came  and  seized  his  seat  beneath  the  sun, 
"  The  votary  of  the  Riddle-god,  whose  one  is  three  and  three  is  one ; 

XXVI. 

"  Whose  sadd'ening  creed  of  herited  Sin  spilt  o'er  the  world  its  cold  grey  spell ; 
"  In  every  vista  showed  a  grave,  and  'neath  the  grave  the  glare  of  Hell ; 

XXVII. 

"  Till  all  Life's  Po'esy  sinks  to  prose ;  romance  to  dull  Real'ity  fades ; 

"  Earth's  flush  of  gladness  pales  in  gloom  and  God  again  to  man  degrades. 

XXVIII. 

"  Then  the  lank  Arab  foul  with  sweat,  the  drainer  of  the  camel's  dug, 
"  Gorged  with  his  leek-green  lizard's  meat,  clad  in  his  filthy  rag  and  rug, 

'Jehova. 

['3l 


THE  KASIDAH 

XXIX. 

"  Bore  his  fierce  Allah  o'er  his  sands  and  broke,  like  lava-burst  upon 

"  The  realmswhere  reigned  pre- Adamite  Kings,  where  rose  theGrand  Kayanian  throne.' 

XXX. 

"Who  now  of  ancient  Kayomurs,  of  Zal  or  Rustam  cares  to  sing, 

"  Whelmed  by  the  tempest  of  the  tribes  that  called  the  Camel-driver  King  ? 

XXXI. 

"  Where  are  the  crown  of  Kay  Khusraw,  the  sceptre  of  Anushirwan 

"  The  holy  grail  of  high  Jamshid,  Afrasiyab's  hall  ?—  Canst  tell  me,  man  ? 

XXXII. 

"  Gone,  gone,  where  I  and  thou  must  go,  borne  by  the  winnowing  wings  of  Death, 
"  The  Horror  brooding  over  life,  and  nearer  brought  with  every  breath : 

XXXIII. 

"  Their  fame  hath  filled  the  Seven  Climes,  they  rose  and  reigned,  they  fought  and  fell, 
"  As  swells  and  swoons  across  the  wold  the  tinkling  of  the  Camel's  bell. 


'  Kayani— of  the  race  of  Cyrus;  old  Guebre  heroes. 

[H] 


THE  KASIDAH  V. 

Xhere  is  no  Good,  there  is  no  Bad;  these  be  the  whims  of  mortal  will: 
What  works  me  weal  that  call  I  *  good,'  what  harms  and  hurts  I  hold  as  '  ill : ' 

II. 
They  change  with  place,  they  shift  with  race ;  and,  in  the  veriest  span  of  Time, 
Each  Vice  has  won  a  Virtue's  crown ;  all  Good  was  banned  as  Sin  or  Crime : 

III. 
Like  ravelled  skeins  they  cross  and  twine,  while  this  with  that  connedts  and  blends ; 
And  only  Khizr'  his  eye  shall  see  where  one  begins,  where  other  ends : 

IV. 

What  mortal  shall  consort  with  Khizr,  when  Musa  turned  in  fear  to  flee  ? 
What  man  foresees  the  flow'er  or  fruit  whom  Fate  compels  to  plant  the  tree? 

V. 

For  Man's  Free-will  immortal  Law,  Anagke,  Kismet,  Des'tiny  read 

That  was,  that  is,  that  aye  shall  be.  Star,  Fortune,  Fate,  Urd,  Norn  or  Need. 

VI. 

"  Man's  nat'ural  State  is  God's  design ;"  such  is  the  silly  sage's  theme; 
"  Man's  primal  Age  was  Age  of  Gold ;"  such  is  the  Poet's  waking  dream : 

VII. 

Delusion,  Ign'orance !  Long  ere  Man  drew  upon  Earth  his  earli'est  breath 
The  world  was  one  contin'uous  scene  of  anguish,  torture,  prey  and  Death ; 

VIII. 

Where  hideous  Theria  of  the  wild  rended  their  fellows  limb  by  limb ; 
Where  horrid  Saurians  of  the  sea  in  waves  of  blood  were  wont  to  swim : 

'  Supposed  to  be  the  Prophet  Elijah. 

[^5] 


THE  KASIDAH 

IX. 

The  "fair  young  Earth"  was  only  fit  to  spawn  her  frightful  monster-brood  ; 
Now  fiery  hot,  now  icy  frore,  now  reeking  wet  with  steamy  flood. 

X. 

Yon  glorious  Sun,  the  greater  light,  the  "  Bridegroom  "  of  the  royal  Lyre, 
A  flaming,  boiling,  bursting  mine ;  a  grim  black  orb  of  whirling  fire : 

XI. 

That  gentle  Moon,  the  lesser  light,  the  Lover's  lamp,  the  Swain's  delight, 
A  ruined  world,  a  globe  burnt  out,  a  corpse  upon  the  road  of  night. 

XII. 

What  reckt  he,  say,  of  Good  or  111  who  in  the  hill-hole  made  his  lair. 
The  blood-fed  rav'ening  Beast  of  prey,  wilder  than  wildest  wolf  or  bear  ? 

XIII. 

How  long  in  Man's  pre-Ad'amite  days  to  feed  and  swill,  to  sleep  and  breed. 
Were  the  Brute-biped's  only  life,  a  perfed:  life  sans  Code  or  Creed  ? 

XIV. 

His  choicest  garb  a  shaggy  fell,  his  choicest  tool  a  flake  of  stone ; 

His  best  of  orn'aments  tattoo'd  skin  and  holes  to  hang  his  bits  of  bone ; 

XV. 

Who  fought  for  female  as  for  food  when  Mays  awoke  to  warm  desire ; 
And  such  the  Lust  that  grew  to  Love  when  Fancy  lent  a  purer  fire. 

XVI. 

Where  then  "Th'  Eternal  nature-law  by  God  engraved  on  human  heart?" 
Behold  his  simiad  sconce  and  own  the  Thing  could  play  no  higher  part. 

XVII. 

Yet,  as  long  ages  rolled,  he  learnt  from  Beaver,  Ape  and  Ant  to  build 

Shelter  for  sire  and  dam  and  brood,  from  blast  and  blaze  that  hurt  and  killed ; 

XVIII. 

And  last  came  Fire ;  when  scrap  of  stone  cast  on  the  flame  that  lit  his  den. 
Gave  out  the  shining  ore,  and  made  the  Lord  of  beasts  a  Lord  of  men. 


[i6] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XIX. 

The  "moral  sense,"  your  Zahid-phrase,  is  but  the  gift  of  latest  years; 
Conscience  was  born  when  man  had  shed  his  fur,  his  tail,  his  pointed  ears. 

XX. 

What  conscience  has  the  murd'erous  Moor,  who  slays  his  guest  with  felon  blow, 
Save  sorrow  he  can  slay  no  more,  what  prick  of  pen'itence  can  he  know? 

XXI. 

You  cry  the  "  Cruelty  of  Things"  is  myst'ery  to  your  purblind  eye. 
Which  fixed  upon  a  point  in  space  the  general  proje<fl:  passes  by: 

XXII. 

For  see !  the  Mammoth  went  his  ways,  became  a  mem'ory  and  a  name; 
While  the  half-reasoner  with  the  hand'  survives  his  rank  and  place  to  claim. 

XXIII. 

Earthquake  and  plague,  storm,  fight  and  fray,  portents  and  curses  man  must  deem 
Since  he  regards  his  self  alone,  nor  cares  to  trace  the  scope,  the  scheme ; 

XXIV. 

The  Quake  that  comes  in  eyelid's  beat  to  ruin,  level,  'gulf  and  kill. 
Builds  up  a  world  for  better  use,  to  general  Good  bends  special  111 : 

XXV. 

The  dreadest  sound  man's  ear  can  hear,  the  war  and  rush  of  stormy  Wind 
Depures  the  stuff  of  human  life,  breeds  health  and  strength  for  humankind : 

XXVI. 

What  call  ye  them  or  Goods  or  Ills,  ill-goods,  good-ills,  a  loss,  a  gain. 
When  realms  arise  and  falls  a  roof;  a  world  is  won,  a  man  is  slain  ? 

XXVII. 

And  thus  the  race  of  Being  runs,  till  haply  in  the  time  to  be 

Earth  shifts  her  pole  and  Mushtari^'-men  another  falling  star  shall  see : 

XXVIII. 

Shall  see  it  fall  and  fade  from  sight,  whence  come,  where  gone  no  Thought  can  tell,- 
Drink  of  yon  mirage-stream  and  chase  the  tinkling  of  the  camel-bell ! 

•  ■•••>•••••••• 

■  The  Elephant. 
»  The  Planet  Jupiter. 

[^7] 


THE  KASIDAH  VI. 


A. 


-LL  Faith  is  false,  all  Faith  is  true :  Truth  is  the  shattered  mirror  strown 
In  myriad  bits ;  while  each  believes  his  little  bit  the  whole  to  own. 


II. 


What  is  the  Truth  ?  was  askt  of  yore.  Reply  all  objedt  Truth  is  one 

As  twain  of  halves  aye  makes  a  whole ;  the  moral  Truth  for  all  is  none. 


III. 


Ye  scantly-learned  Zahids  learn  from  Aflatun  and  Aristu,' 

While  Truth  is  real  like  your  good :  th'  Untrue,  like  ill,  is  real  too ; 

IV. 

As  palace  mirror'd  in  the  stream,  as  vapour  mingled  with  the  skies. 
So  weaves  the  brain  of  mortal  man  the  tangled  web  of  Truth  and  Lies. 

V. 

What  see  we  here  ?  Forms,  nothing  more !  Forms  fill  the  brightest,  strongest  eye. 
We  know  not  substance;  'mid  the  shades  shadows  ourselves  we  live  and  die. 

VI. 

"  Faith  mountains  move"  I  hear:  I  see  the  practice  of  the  world  unheed 
The  foolish  vaunt,  the  blatant  boast  that  serves  our  vanity  to  feed. 

VII. 

"  Faith  stands  unmoved ;  "  and  why?  Because  man's  silly  fancies  still  remain. 
And  will  remain  till  wiser  man  the  day-dreams  of  his  youth  disdain. 

VIII. 

"  'Tis  blessed  to  believe ;  "  you  say:  the  saying  may  be  true  enow 
And  it  can  add  to  Life  a  light :  —  only  remains  to  show  us  how. 

'  Plato  and  Aristotle. 


[i8] 


THEKASIDAH 

IX. 

E'en  if  I  could  I  nould  believe  your  tales  and  fables  stale  and  trite. 
Irksome  as  twice-sung  tune  that  tries  the  dulled  ear  of  drowsy  wight. 

X. 

With  God's  foreknowledge  man's  free  will !  what  monster-growth  of  human  brain, 
What  pow'ers  of  light  shall  ever  pierce  this  puzzle  dense  with  words  inane  ? 

XI. 

Vainly  the  heart  on  Providence  calls,  such  aid  to  seek  were  hardly  wise 

For  man  must  own  the  pitiless  Law  that  sways  the  globe  and  sevenfold  skies. 

XII. 

"  Be  ye  Good  Boys,  go  seek  for  Heav'en,  come  pay  the  priest  that  holds  the  key ; " 
So  spake,  and  speaks,  and  aye  shall  speak  the  last  to  enter  Heaven, —  he. 

XIII. 

Are  these  the  words  for  men  to  hear?  yet  such  the  Church's  general  tongue. 
The  horseleech^cry  so  strong  so  high  her  heav'enward  Psalms  and  Hymns  among. 

XIV. 

What?  Faith  a  merit  and  a  claim,  when  with  the  brain 'tis  born  and  bred? 
Go,  fool,  thy  foolish  way  and  dip  in  holy  water  buried  dead  ! 

XV. 

Yet  follow  not  th'  unwisdom-path,  cleave  not  to  this  and  that  disclaim ; 
Believe  in  all  that  man  believes ;  here  all  and  naught  are  both  the  same. 

XVI. 

But  is  it  so?  How  may  we  know?  Haply  this  Fate,  this  Law  may  be 
A  word,  a  sound,  a  breath ;  at  most  the  Zahid's  moonstruck  theory. 

XVII. 

Yes  Truth  may  be,  but  'tis  not  Here;  mankind  must  seek  and  find  it  There, 
But  Where  nor  /  nor  you  can  tell,  nor  aught  earth-mother  ever  bare. 

XVIII. 

Enough  to  think  that  Truth  can  be :  come  sit  we  where  the  roses  glow, 
Indeed  he  knows  not  how  to  know  who  knows  not  also  how  to'unknow. 


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THE  KASIDAH  VII. 


M, 


-AN  hath  no  Soul,  a  state  of  things,  a  no-thing  still,  a  sound,  a  word 
Which  so  begets  substantial  thing  that  eye  shall  see  what  ear  hath  heard. 


II. 


Where  was  his  Soul  the  savage  beast  which  in  primeval  forests  strayed. 
What  shape  had  it,  what  dwelling-place,  what  part  in  nature's  plan  it  played  ? 


III. 


This  Soul  to  ree  a  riddle  made;  who  wants  the  vain  duality? 
Is  not  myself  enough  for  me  ?  what  need  of"  I  "  within  an  "  I  "  ? 

IV. 

Words,  words  that  gender  things !  The  soul  is  a  new-comer  on  the  scene ; 
Sufficeth  not  the  breath  of  Life  to  work  the  matter-born  machine  ? 

V. 

We  know  the  Gen'esis  of  the  Soul ;  we  trace  the  Soul  to  hour  of  birth  ; 
We  mark  its  growth  as  grew  mankind  to  boast  himself  sole  Lord  of  Earth ; 

VI. 

The  race  of  Be'ing  from  dawn  of  Life  in  an  unbroken  course  was  run ; 
What  men  are  pleased  to  call  their  Souls  was  in  the  hog  and  dog  begun : 

VII. 

Life  is  a  ladder  infinite-stepped,  that  hides  its  rungs  from  human  eyes ; 
Planted  its  foot  in  chaos-gloom,  its  head  soars  high  above  the  skies : 

VIII. 

No  break  the  chain  of  Being  bears;  all  things  began  in  unity; 

And  lie  the  links  in  regular  line  though  haply  none  the  sequence  see. 


[20] 


THE  KASIDAH 

IX. 

The  Ghost,  embodied  natural  Dread  of  dreary  death  and  foul  decay, 
Begat  the  Spirit,  Soul  and  Shade  with  Hades'  pale  and  wan  array. 

•X. 

The  Soul  required  a  greater  Soul,  a  Soul  of  Souls,  to  rule  the  host ; 
Hence  spirit-powers  and  hierarchies,  all  gendered  by  the  savage  Ghost. 

XI. 

Not  yours,  ye  Peoples  of  the  Book,  these  fairy  visions  fair  and  fond. 
Got  by  the  gods  of  Khemi-land'  and  faring  far  the  seas  beyond ! 

XII. 

"Th'  immortal  mind  of  mortal  man  ! "  we  hear  yon  loud-lunged  Zealot  cry; 
Whose  mind  but  means  his  sum  of  thought,  an  essence  of  atomic"  I." 

XIII. 

Thought  is  the  work  of  brain  and  nerve,  in  small-skulled  idiot  poor  and  mean ; 
In  sickness  sick,  in  sleep  asleep,  and  dead  when  Death  lets  drop  the  scene. 

XIV. 

"Tush !  "quoth  the  Zahid,"  well  we  ken  the  teaching  of  the  school  abhorr'd 
"That  maketh  man  automaton,  mind  a  secretion,  soul  a  word." 

* 

XV. 

"  Of  molecules  and  protoplasm  you  matter-mongers  prompt  to  prate ; 
"  Of  jelly-speck,  development  and  apes  that  grew  to  man's  estate." 

XVI. 

Vain  cavil !  all  that  is  hath  come  either  by  Mir'acle  or  by  Law  ;  — 

Why  waste  on  this  your  hate  and  fear,  why  waste  on  that  your  love  and  awe  ? 

XVII. 

Why  heap  such  hatred  on  a  word,  why  "  Prototype  "  to  type  assign. 
Why  upon  matter  spirit  mass  ?  wants  an  appendix  your  design  ? 

XVIII. 

Is  not  the  highest  honour  his  who  from  the  worst  hath  drawn  the  best ; 
May  not  your  Maker  make  the  world  from  matter,  an  it  suit  His  hest  ? 

» Egypt ;  Kam,  Kem,  Khem  (hierogl. ),  in  the  Demotic  Khemi. 

[21] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XIX. 

Nay  more,  the  sordider  the  stuff  the  cunninger  the  workman's  hand : 
Cease,  then,  your  own  Almighty  Power  to  bind,  to  bound,  to  understand. 

XX.. 

"  Reason  and  Instindl! "  How  we  love  to  play  with  words  that  please  our  pride; 
Our  noble  race's  mean  descent  by  false  forged  titles  seek  to  hide ! 

XXI. 

For  "gift  divine"  I  bid  you  read  the  better  work  of  higher  brain, 
From  Instindl  differing  in  degree  as  golden  mine  from  leaden  vein. 

XXII. 

Reason  is  Life's  sole  arbiter,  the  magic  Laby'rinth's  single  clue: 
Worlds  lie  above,  beyond  its  ken ;  what  crosses  it  can  ne'er  be  true. 

XXIII. 

"  Fools  rush  where  Angels  fear  to  tread !  "  Angels  and  Fools  have  equal  claim 
To  do  what  Nature  bids  them  do,  sans  hope  of  praise,  sans  fear  of  blame ! 


[22] 


THE  KASIDAH  VIII. 


T 


.HERE  is  no  Heav'en,  there  is  no  Hell;  these  be  the  dreams  of  baby  minds; 
Tools  of  the  wily  Fetisheer,  to  'fright  the  fools  his  cunning  blinds. 


II. 


Learn  from  the  mighty  Spi'rits  of  old  to  set  thy  foot  on  Heav'en  and  Hell ; 
In  Life  to  find  thy  hell  and  heav'en  as  thou  abuse  or  use  it  well. 


III. 


So  deemed  the  doughty  Jew  who  dared  by  studied  silence^  low  to  lay 
Orcus  and  Hades,  lands  of  shades,  the  gloomy  night  of  human  day. 

IV. 

Hard  to  the  heart  is  final  death :  fain  would  an  Ens  not  end  in  Nil; 
Love  made  the  senti'ment  kindly  good :  the  Priest  perverted  all  to  ill. 

V. 

While  Reason  sternly  bids  us  die.  Love  longs  for  life  beyond  the  grave : 
Our  hearts,  affections,  hopes  and  fears  for  life-to-be  shall  ever  crave. 

VI. 

Hence  came  the  despot's  darling  dream,  a  Church  to  rule  and  sway  the  State ; 
Hence  sprang  the  train  of  countless  griefs  in  priestly  sway  and  rule  innate. 

VII. 

For  future  Life  who  dares  reply  ?  No  witness  at  the  bar  have  we ; 
Save  what  the  brother  Potsherd  tells, — old  tales  and  novel  jugglery. 

VIII. 

Who  e'er  return'd  to  teach  the  Truth,  the  things  of  Heaven  and  Hell  to  limn  ? 
And  all  we  hear  is  only  fit  for  grandam-talk  and  nursery-hymn. 


[23] 


THEKASIDAH 

IX. 

"  Have  mercy,  man ! "  the  Zahid  cries,  "  of  our  best  visions  rob  us  not ! 
"  Mankind  a  future  life  must  have  to  balance  life's  unequal  lot." 

X. 

"  Nay,"  quoth  the  Magian  "  'tis  not  so  ;  I  draw  my  wine  for  one  and  all, 
A  cup  for  this,  a  score  for  that,  e'en  as  his  measure's  great  or  small : 

XI. 

"  Who  drinks  one  bowl  hath  scant  delight ;  to  poorest  passion  he  was  born ; 
"Who  drains  the  score  must  e'er  exped:  to  rue  the  headache  of  the  morn." 

XII. 

Safely  he  jogs  along  the  way  which '  Golden  Mean '  the  sages  call ; 
Who  scales  the  brow  of  frowing  Alp  must  face  full  many  a  slip  and  fall. 

XIII. 

Here  extremes  meet,  anointed  Kings  whose  crowned  heads  uneasy  lie. 
Whose  cup  of  joy  contains  no  more  than  tramps  that  on  the  dunghill  die. 

XIV. 

To  fate-doomed  Sinner  born  and  bred  for  dangling  from  the  gallows-tree ; 
To  Saint  who  spends  his  holy  days  in  rapt'urous  hope  his  God  to  see ; 

XV. 

To  all  that  breathe  our  upper  air  the  hands  of  Dest'iny  ever  deal. 

In  fixed  and  equal  parts,  their  shares  of  joy  and  sorrow,  woe  and  weal. 

XVI. 

"  How  comes  it,  then,  our  span  of  days  in  hunting  wealth  and  fame  we  spend 
"  Why  strive  we  ( and  all  humans  strive )  for  vain  and  visionary  end  ? " 

XVII. 

Reply;  mankind  obeys  a  law  that  bids  him  labour,  struggle,  strain ; 
The  Sage  well  knowing  its  unworth,  the  Fool  a-dreaming  foolish  gain. 

XVIII. 

And  who,  'mid  e'en  the  Fools,  but  feels  that  half  the  joy  is  in  the  race 

For  wealth  and  fame  and  place,  nor  sighs  when  comes  success  to  crown  the  chase  ? 


[24] 


THEKASIDAH 

XIX. 

Again :  in  Hind,  Chin,  Franguestan  that  accident  of  birth  befell. 
Without  our  choice,  our  will,  our  voice :  Faith  is  an  accident  as  well, 

XX. 

What  to  the  Hindu  saith  the  Frank :  "  Denier  of  the  Laws  divine  ! 
However  godly-good  thy  Life,  Hell  is  the  home  for  thee  and  thine." 

XXI. 

"  Go  strain  the  draught  before  't  is  drunk,  and  learn  that  breathing  every  breath, 
"  With  every  step,  with  every  gest,  some  thing  of  life  thou  do'est  to  death." 

XXII. 

Replies  the  Hindu :  "  Wend  thy  way  for  foul  and  foolish  Mlenchhas  fit; 

"  Your  Pariah-par'adise  woo  and  win  ;  at  such  dog-Heav'en  I  laugh  and  spit. 

XXIII. 

"  Cannibals  of  the  Holy  Cow !  who  make  your  rav'ening  maws  the  grave 

"  Of  Things  with  self-same  right  to  live ;  —  what  Fiend  the  filthy  license  gave  ? " 

XXIV. 

What  to  the  Moslem  cries  the  Frank?  "A  polygamic Theist  thou! 
"  From  an  imposter-Prophet  turn ;  thy  stubborn  head  to  Jesus  bow." 

XXV. 

Rejoins  the  Moslem:  "Allah's  one  tho'  with  four  Moslemahs  I  wive, 

"  One-wife-men  ye  and  ( damned  race ! )  you  split  your  God  to  Three  and  Five." 

XXVI. 

The  Buddhist  to  Confucians  thus :  "  Like  dogs  ye  live,  like  dogs  ye  die ; 
"  Content  ye  rest  with  wretched  earth;  God,  Judgment,  Hell  ye  fain  defy." 

XXVII. 

Retorts  the  Tartar:  "Shall  I  lend  mine  only  ready-money  'now,' 
For  vain  usurious '  Then '  like  thine,  avaunt,  a  triple  idiot  Thou !  " 

XXVIII. 

"  With  this  poor  life,  with  this  mean  world  I  fain  complete  what  in  me  lies ; 
I  strive  to  perfedt  this  my  me;  my  sole  ambition's  to  be  wise." 


[25] 


THEKASIDAH 

XXIX. 

When  doftors  differ  who  decides  amid  the  milliard-headed  throng  ? 

Who  save  the  madman  dares  to  cry: "  'Tis  I  am  right,  you  all  are  wrong  ?" 

XXX. 

**  You  all  are  right,  you  all  are  wrong,"  we  hear  the  careless  Soofi  say, 

"  For  each  believes  his  glimm'ering  lamp  to  be  the  gorgeous  light  of  day." 

XXXI. 

"  Thy  faith  why  false,  my  faith  why  true  ?  't  is  all  the  work  of  Thine  and  Mine, 
"The  fond  and  foolish  love  of  self  that  makes  the  Mine  excel  the  Thine." 

XXXII. 

Cease  then  to  mumble  rotten  bones ;  and  strive  to  clothe  with  flesh  and  blood 
The  skel'eton ;  and  to  shape  a  Form  that  all  shall  hail  as  fair  and  good. 

XXXIII. 

"  For  gen'erous  youth,"  an  Arab  saith,  "Jahim's'  the  only  genial  state ; 
"  Give  us  the  fire  but  not  the  shame  with  the  sad,  sorry  blest  to  mate." 

xxxiv. 
And  if  your  Heav'en  and  Hell  be  true,  and  Fate  that  forced  me  to  be  born 
Forced  me  to  Heav'en  or  Hell  —  I  go,  and  hold  Fate's  insolence  in  scorn. 

XXXV. 

I  want  not  this,  I  want  not  that,  already  sick  of  Me  and  Thee ; 

And  if  we 're  both  transform'd  and  changed,  what  then  becomes  of  Thee  and  Me? 

XXXVI. 

Enough  to  think  such  things  may  be :  to  say  they  are  not  or  they  are 
Were  folly :  leave  them  all  to  Fate,  nor  wage  on  shadows  useless  war. 

XXXVII. 

Do  what  thy  manhood  bids  thee  do,  from  none  but  self  expert  applause ; 
He  noblest  lives  and  noblest  dies  who  makes  and  keeps  his  self-made  laws. 

XXXVIII. 

All  other  Life  is  living  Death,  a  world  where  none  but  Phantoms  dwell, 
A  breath,  a  wind,  a  sound,  a  voice,  a  tinkling  of  the  camel-bell. 

"Jehannum,  Gehenna,  Hell. 

[26] 


THE  KASIDAH  IX. 

-ow  then  shall  man  so  order  life  that  when  his  tale  of  years  is  told. 
Like  sated  guest  he  wend  his  way;  how  shall  his  even  tenour  hold? 


H< 


II. 

Despite  the  Writ  that  stores  the  skull ;  despite  the  Table  and  the  Pen ; ' 
Maugre  the  Fate  that  plays  us  down,  her  board  the  world,  her  pieces  men  ? 

III. 
How  when  the  light  and  glow  of  life  wax  dim  in  thickly  gath'ering  gloom. 
Shall  mortal  scoff  at  sting  of  Death,  shall  scorn  the  vidlory  of  the  Tomb  ? 

IV. 

« 

One  way,  two  paths,  one  end  the  grave.  This  runs  athwart  the  flow'ery  plain. 
That  breasts  the  bush,  the  steep,  the  crag,  in  sun  and  wind  and  snow  and  rain : 

v. 
Who  treads  the  first  must  look  adown,  must  deem  his  life  an  all  in  all ; 
Must  see  no  heights  where  man  may  rise,  must  sight  no  depths  where  man  may  fall. 

VI. 

Allah  in  Adam  form  must  view;  adore  the  Maker  in  the  made 
Content  to  bask  in  Maya's  smile,*  in  joys  of  pain,  in  lights  of  shade. 

VII. 

He  breaks  the  Law,  he  burns  the  Book,  he  sends  the  Moolah  back  to  school ; 
Laughs  at  the  beards  of  Saintly  men ;  and  dubs  the  Prophet  dolt  and  fool, 

VIII. 

Embraces  Cypress'  taper-waist ;  cools  feet  on  wavy  breast  of  rill ; 
Smiles  in  the  Nargis'  love-lorn  eyes,  and  'joys  the  dance  of  Daffodil ; 


•  Emblems  of  Kismet,  or  Destiny. 

*  Illusion. 


[27] 


THE  KASIDAH 

IX. 

Melts  in  the  saffron  light  of  Dawn  to  hear  the  moaning  of  the  Dove ; 
Delights  in  Sundown's  purpling  hues  when  Bulbul  woos  the  Rose's  love. 

X. 

Finds  mirth  and  joy  in  Jamshid-bowl ;  toys  with  the  Daughter  of  the  vine ; 
And  bids  the  beauteous  cup-boy  say, "  Master  I  bring  thee  ruby  wine ! "' 

XI. 

Sips  from  the  maiden's  lips  the  dew;  brushes  the  bloom  from  virgin  brow:  — 
Such  is  his  fleshly  bliss  that  strives  the  Maker  through  the  Made  to  know. 

XII. 

I've  tried  them  all,  I  find  them  all  so  same  and  tame,  so  drear,  so  dry; 
My  gorge  ariseth  at  the  thought;  I  commune  with  myself  and  cry:  — 

XIII. 

Better  the  myriad  toils  and  pains  that  make  the  man  to  manhood  true. 
This  be  the  rule  that  guideth  life ;  these  be  the  laws  for  me  and  you : 

XIV. 

With  Ignor'ance  wage  eternal  war,  to  know  thy  self  forever  strain, 
Thine  ignorance  of  thine  ignorance  is  thy  fiercest  foe,  thy  deadliest  bane ; 

XV. 

That  blunts  thy  sense,  and  dulls  thy  taste ;  that  deafs  thine  ears,  and  blinds  thine  eyes ; 
Creates  the  thing  that  never  was,  the  Thing  that  ever  is  defies. 

XVI. 

The  finite  Atom  infinite  that  forms  thy  circle's  centre-dot. 
So  full-sufficient  for  itself,  for  other  selves  existing  not, 

XVII. 

Finds  the  world  mighty  as  'tis  small ;  yet  must  be  fought  the  unequal  fray; 
A  myriad  giants  here ;  and  there  a  pinch  of  dust,  a  clod  of  clay. 

XVIII. 

Yes !  maugre  all  thy  dreams  of  peace  still  must  the  fight  unfair  be  fought ; 
Where  thou  mayst  learn  the  noblest  lore,  to  know  that  all  we  know  is  nought. 

'  That  all  the  senses,  even  the  ear,  may  enjoy. 

[28] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XIX. 

True  to  thy  Nature,  to  Thy  self,  Fame  and  Disfame  nor  hope  nor  fear : 
Enough  to  thee  the  small  still  voice  aye  thund'ering  in  thine  inner  ear. 

XX. 

From  self-approval  seek  applause :  What  ken  not  men  thou  kennest,  thou ! 
Spurn  ev'ry  idol  others  raise:  before  thine  own  Ideal  bow: 

XXI. 

Be  thine  own  Deus :  Make  self  free,  liberal  as  the  circling  air : 

Thy  Thought  to  thee  an  Empire  be ;  break  every  prison'ing  lock  and  bar : 

XXII. 

Do  thou  the  Ought  to  self  aye  owed ;  here  all  the  duties  meet  and  blend, 
In  widest  sense,  withouten  care  of  what  began,  for  what  shall  end. 

XXIII. 

Thus,  as  thou  view  the  Phantom-forms  which  in  the  misty  Past  were  thine. 
To  be  again  the  thing  thou  wast  with  honest  pride  thou  may'st  decline ; 

XXIV. 

And,  glancing  down  the  range  of  years,  fear  not  thy  future  self  to  see  ; 
Resign'd  to  life,  to  death  resign'd,  as  though  the  choice  were  naught  to  thee. 

XXV. 

On  Thought  itself  feed  not  thy  thought ;  nor  turn  from  Sun  and  Light  to  gaze. 
At  darkling  cloisters  paved  with  tombs,  where  rot  the  bones  of  bygone  days : 

XXVI. 

"  Eat  not  thy  heart,"  the  Sages  said ; "  nor  mourn  the  Past,  the  buried  Past ; " 
Do  what  thou  dost,  be  strong,  be  brave ;  and,  like  the  Star,  nor  rest  nor  haste. 

XXVII. 

Pluck  the  old  woman  from  thy  breast :  be  stout  in  woe,  be  stark  in  weal ; 

Do  good  for  Good  is  good  to  do :  Spurn  bribe  of  Heav'en  and  threat  of  Hell. 

XXVIII. 

To  seek  the  True,  to  glad  the  heart,  such  is  of  life  the  HIGHER  LAW, 
Whose  differ'ence  is  the  Man's  degree,  the  Man  of  gold,  the  Man  of  straw. 


[29] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XXIX. 

See  not  that  something  in  Mankind  that  rouses  hate  or  scorn  or  strife, 
Better  the  worm  of  Izrail'  than  Death  that  walks  in  form  of  life. 

XXX. 

Survey  thy  kind  as  One  whose  wants  in  the  great  Human  Whole  unite;* 
The  Homo  rising  high  from  earth  to  seek  the  Heav'ens  of  Life-in-Light ; 

XXXI. 

And  hold  Humanity  one  man,  whose  universal  agony 

Still  strains  and  strives  to  gain  the  goal,  where  agonies  shall  cease  to  be. 

XXXII. 

Believe  in  all  things ;  none  believe ;  judge  not  nor  warp  by  "  Fa6ts  "  the  thought ; 
See  clear,  hear  clear,  tho'  life  may  seem  Maya  and  Mirage,  Dream  and  Naught, 

XXXIII. 

Abjure  the  Why  and  seek  the  How:  the  God  and  gods  enthroned  on  high. 
Are  silent  all,  are  silent  still ;  nor  hear  thy  voice,  nor  deign  reply. 

XXXIV. 

The  Now,  that  indivis'ible  point  which  studs  the  length  of  infinite  line 
Whose  ends  are  nowhere,  is  thine  all,  the  puny  all  thou  callest  thine. 

XXXV. 

Perchance  the  law  some  Giver  hath :  Let  be !  let  be !  what  canst  thou  know? 
A  myriad  races  came  and  went ;  this  Sphinx  hath  seen  them  come  and  go. 

XXXVI. 

Haply  the  Law  that  rules  the  world  allows  to  man  the  widest  range ; 
And  haply  Fate's  a  Theist-word,  subjedt  to  human  chance  and  change. 

XXXVII. 

This"  I  "  may  find  a  future  Life,  a  nobler  copy  of  our  own, 

Where  every  riddle  shall  be  ree'd,  where  every  knowledge  shall  be  known ; 

XXXVIII. 

Where  't  will  be  man's  to  see  the  whole  of  what  on  Earth  he  sees  in  part ; 

Where  change  shall  ne'er  surcharge  the  thought ;  nor  hope  defer'd  shall  hurt  the  heart. 

>  The  Angel  of  Death. 

»  The  "  Great  Man  "  of  the  Enochites  and  the  Mormons. 

[30] 


THE  KASIDAH 

XXXIX. 

But! — faded  flow'er  and  fallen  leaf  no  more  shall  deck,  the  parent  tree; 
And  man  once  dropt  by  Tree  of  Life  what  hope  of  other  life  has  he  ? 

XL. 

The  shatter'd  bowl  shall  know  repair ;  the  riven  lute  shall  sound  once  more ; 
But  who  shall  mend  the  clay  of  man,  the  stolen  breath  to  man  restore  ? 

XLI. 

The  shiver'd  clock  again  shall  strike ;  the  broken  reed  shall  pipe  again : 
But  we,  we  die,  and  Death  is  one,  the  doom  of  brutes,  the  doom  of  men. 

XLII. 

Then,  if  Nirwana'  round  our  life  with  nothingness,  'tis,  haply  best; 

Thy  toils  and  troubles,  want  and  woe  at  length  have  won  their  guerdon  —  Rest. 

XLIII.  . 

Cease,  Abdu,  cease !  Thy  song  is  sung,  nor  think  the  gain  the  singer's  prize ; 
Till  men  hold  Ignor'ance  deadly  sin,  till  man  deserves  his  title"Wise:"* 

XLIV. 

In  Days  to  come.  Days  slow  to  dawn,  when  Wisdom  deigns  to  dwell  with  men, 
These  echoes  of  a  voice  long  stilled  haply  shall  wake  responsive  strain : 

XLV. 

Wend  now  thy  way  with  brow  serene,  fear  not  thy  humble  tale  to  tell :  — 
The  whispers  of  the  Desert-wind;  the  Tinkling  of  the  camel's-bell. 


iDbtD 


'  Compararive  annihilation. 
*  "  Homo  sapiens." 


[31] 


NOTES 


Note  I:  Hdji 

Haji  Abdu  has  been  known  to  me  for  more 
years  than  I  care  to  record.  A  native,  it  is  be- 
lieved, of  Darabghird  in  the  Yezd  Province, 
he  always  preferred  to  style  himself  El-Hich- 
makani,  a  facetious  "lackab"  or  surname, 
meaning  "  Of  No-hall,  Nowhere."  He  had 
travelled  far  and  wide  with  his  eyes  open  ;  as 
appears  by  his  "couplets."  To  a  natural  facil- 
ity, a  knack  of  language-learning,  he  added 
a  store  of  desultory  various  reading;  scraps 
of  Chinese  and  old  Egyptian;  of  Hebrew 
and  Syriac;  of  Sanskrit  and  Prakrit;  of  Slav, 
especially  Lithuanian;  of  Latin  and  Greek, 
including  Romaic;  of  Berber,  the  Nubian 
dialedl,  and  of  Zend  and  Akkadian,  besides 
Persian,  his  mother-tongue,  and  Arabic,  the 
classic  of  the  schools.  Nor  was  he  ignorant  of 
"the  -ologies"  and  the  triumphs  of  modern 
scientific  discovery.  Briefly,  his  memory  was 
well-stored ;  and  he  had  every  talent  save  that 
of  using  his  talents. 

But  no  one  thought  that  he  "woo'd  the 
Muse,"  to  speak  in  the  style  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. Even  his  intimates  were  ignorant  of  the 
faft  that  he  had  a  skeleton  in  his  cupboard, 
his  Kasidahordistichs.  He  confided  to  me  his 
secret  when  we  last  met  in  Western  India— 
I  am  purposely  vague  in  specifying  the  place. 
When  so  doing  he  held  in  hand  the  long  and 
hoary  honours  of  his  chin  with  the  points 
towards  me,  as  if  to  say  with  the  Island-King: 


Abdu,  the  Man 

There  is  a  touch  of  Winter  in  my  beard, 

A  sign  the  Gods  will  guard  me  from  imprudence. 

And  yet  the  piercing  eye,  clear  as  an  onyx, 
seemed  to  protest  against  the  plea  of  age.  The 
MS. was  in  the  vilest  "Shikastah"  or  running- 
hand;  and,  as  I  carried  it  off,  the  writer  de- 
clined to  take  the  trouble  of  copying  out  his 
cacograph. 

We,his  old  friends,had  long  addressed  Haji 
Abdu  by  the  sobriquet  of  Nabbiana  ("our 
Prophet");  and  the  reader  will  see  that  the 
Pilgrim  has,  or  believes  he  has,  a  message  to 
deliver.  He  evidentlyaspires  to  preach  a  Faith 
ofhis  own;  an  Eastern  Version  of  Humanitar- 
ianism  blended  with  the  sceptical  or,  as  we  now 
say,thescientifichabitof  mind.  This  religion, 
of  which  Fetishism,  Hinduism  and  Heathen- 
dom; Judaeism,  Christianity  and  Islamism 
are  mere  fraftions,  may,  methi nks,  be  accepted 
by  the  Philosopher:  it  worships  with  single- 
minded  devotion  the  Holy  Cause  of  Truth, 
of  Truth  for  its  own  sake,  not  for  the  goods  it 
may  bring;  and  this  belief  is  equally  accept- 
able to  honest  ignorance,  and  to  the  highest 
attainments  in  nature-study. 

With  Confucius  the  Haji  cultivates  what 
Strauss  has  called  the  "stern  common-sense  of 
mankind ; "  while  the  reign  of  order  is  a  para- 
graph ofhis  "Higher  Law."  He  traces  from 
its  rudest  beginnings  the  all  but  absolute  uni- 
versality of  some  perception  by  man,  called 


[33] 


NOTES 


"Faith;  "that  j^«j«jiV«OT/«/jwhich,  by  inheri- 
tance or  communication,  is  now  universal  ex- 
cept in  those  who  force  themselves  to  oppose 
it.  And  he  evidently  holds  this  general  con- 
sent of  mankind  to  be  so  far  divine  that  it 
primarily  discovered  for  itself,  if  it  did  not 
create,  a  divinity.  He  does  not  cry  with  the 
Christ  of  Novalis,  "Children,  you  have  no 
father;"  and  perhaps  he  would  join  Renan  in 
exclaiming,  Un  monde  sans  Dieu  est  horrible! 

But  he  recognizes  the  incompatibility  of 
the  Infinite  with  the  Definite;  of  a  Beingwho 
loves,  who  thinks,  who  hates;  of  an  A£lus 
purus  who  is  called  jealous,  wrathful  and  re- 
vengeful, with  an  "  Eternal  that  makes  for 
righteousness."  In  the  presence  of  the  end- 
less contradiftions,  which  spring  from  the  idea 
of  a  Personal  Deity,  with  the  Synthesis,  the 
Begriffoi  Providence,  our  Agnostic  takes  ref- 
uge in  the  sentiment  of  an  unknown  and  an 
unknowable.  He  objefts  to  the  countless  va- 
riety of  forms  assumed  by  the  perception  of 
a  Causa  Causans  (a  misnomer),  and  to  that 
intellediual  adoption  of  general  propositions, 
capable  of  distindt  statement  but  incapable  of 
proofs,  which  we  term  Belief. 

He  looks  with  impartial  eye  upon  the  end- 
less variety  of  systems,  mai  ntained  with  equal 
confidence  and  self-sufficiency,  by  men  of 
equal  ability  and  honesty.  He  is  weary  of 
wanderingover  the  world,and  of  finding  every 
petty  race  wedded  to  its  own  opinions;  claim- 
ing the  monopoly  of  Truth;  holding  all  others 
to  be  in  error,  and  raising  disputes  whose  vio- 
lence, acerbity  and  virulence  are  in  inverse 
ratio  to  the  importance  of  the  disputed  matter. 
A  peculiarly  active  and  acute  observation 
taught  him  that  many  of  thesejarring  families, 
especially  those  of  the  same  blood,  are  par  in 


the  intellectual  processes  of  perception  and 
reflection;  that  in  the  business  of  the  visible 
working  world  they  are  confessedly  by  no 
means  superior  to  one  another;  whereas  in 
abstruse  matters  of  mere  Faith,  not  admitting 
dired:  and  sensual  evidence,  one  in  a  hundred 
will  claim  to  be  right,  and  immodestly  charge 
the  other  ninety-nine  with  being  wrong. 

Thus  he  seeks  to  discover  a  system  which 
will  prove  them  all  right, and  all  wrong;  which 
will  reconcile  their  differences ;  will  unite  past 
creeds;  will  account  for  the  present,  and  will 
anticipate  the  future  with  a  continuous  and 
uninterrupted  development;  this,  too,  by  a 
process,  not  negative  and  distinftive,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  intensely  positive  and  construc- 
tive. I  am  not  called  upon  to  sit  in  the  seat  of 
judgment;  buti  may  say  that  it  would  be  sing- 
ular if  the  attempt  succeeded.  Such  a  system 
would  be  all-comprehensive,  because  not  lim- 
ited by  space, time, or  race;  its  principle.would 
be  extensive  as  Matter  itself,  and,  consequent- 
ly, eternal.  Meanwhile  he  satisfies  himself,— 
the  main  point. 

Students  of  metaphysics  have  of  late  years 
defined  the  abuse  of  their  science  as  "  the  mor- 
phology of  common  opinion."  Contemporary 
investigators,  they  say,  have  been  too  much 
occupied  with  introspedbion;  their  labours 
have  become  merely  physiologico-biographi- 
cal,and  they  have  greatly  negledted  the  study 
of  averages.  For,  says  La  Rochefoucauld,  // 
est  plus  aise  de  connoitre  Vhomme  en  general  que 
de  connoitre  un  homme  enparticulier;  and  on  so  • 
wide  a  subjedt  all  views  must  be  one-sided. 

But  this  is  not  the  fashion  of  Easterns.  They 
have  still  to  treat  great  questions  ex  analogia 
universi,  instead  of  ex  analogia  hominis.  They 
must  learn  the  basis  of  sociology,  the  philo- 


[34 


NOTES 

sophic  convidion  that  mankind  should  be  great  French  Revolution,  he  broke  with  the 

studied,  not  as  a  congeries  of  individuals,  but  Past ;  and  he  threw  overboard  the  whole  cargo 

as  an  organic  whole.    Hence  the  Zeitgeist,  of  human  tradition.  The  result  has  been  an 

or  historical  evolution  of  the  colleftive  con-  immense  movement  of  the  mind  which  we 

sciousness  of  the  age,  despises  the  obsolete  love  to  call  Progress,  when  it  has  often  been 

opinion  that  Society,  the  State,  is  bound  by  retrograde;  together  with  a  mighty  develop- 

the  same  moral  duties  as  the  simple  citizen,  ment  of  egotism  resulting  from  the  pampered 

Hence,  too,  it  holds  that  the  "spirit  of  man,  sentiment  of  personality, 

being  of  equal  and  uniform  substance,  doth  The  Haji  regrets  the  excessive  importance 

usually  suppose  and  feign  in  nature  a  greater  attached  to  a  possible  future  state:  he  looks 

equality  and  uniformity  than  is  in  Truth."  upon  this  as  a  psychical  stimulant,  a  day 

Christianity  and  Islamism  have  been  on  dream, whose  revulsion  and  reaftion  disorder 

their  trial  for  the  last  eighteen  and  twelve  cen-  waking  life.  The  condition  may  appear  hum- 

turies.  They  have  been  ardent  in  proselytiz-  ble  and  prosaic  to  those  exalted  by  the  fumes 

ing,  yet  they  embrace  only  one-tenth  and  one-  of  Fancy,by  a  spiritual  dram-drinking  which, 

twentieth  of  the  human  race.    Haji  Abdii  like  the  physical,  is  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal 

would  account  for  the  tardy  andunsatisfadory  happiness.  But  he  is  too  wise  to  affirm  or  to 

progress  of  what  their  votaries  call  "pure  deny  the  existence  of  another  world.  For  life 

truths,"  by  the  innate  imperfedtions  of  the  beyond  the  grave  there  is  no  consensus  of 

same.  Both  propose  a  reward  for  mere  belief,  mankind,  no  Catholic  opinion  held  semper ,  et 

and  a  penalty  for  simple  unbelief;  rewards  and  ubique,  et  ab  omnibus.The  intelledual  faculties 

punishments  being,  by  the  way,  very  dispro-  (perception  and  refledion)  are  mute  upon  the 

portionate.  Thus  they  reduce  everything  to  subjed:  they  bear  no  testimony  to  fads;  they 

the  scale  of  a  somewhat  unrefined  egotism ;  show  no  proof  Even  the  instindive  sense  of 

and  their  demoralizing  effisds  become  clearer  our  kind  is  here  dumb.  We  may  believe  what 

to  every  progressive  age.  we  are  taught:  we  can  know  nothing.  He 

Haji  Abdu  seeks  Truth  only,  truth  as  far  would,  therefore,  cultivate   that   receptive 

as  man,  in  the  present  phase  of  his  develop-  mood  which,  marching  under  the  shadow  of 

ment,  is  able  to  comprehend  it.  He  disdains  mighty  events,  leads  to  the  highest  of  goals,— 

to  associate  utility,  like  Bacon(Nov.  Org.  I.  the  development  of  Humanity.  With  him 

Aph.  i24)ythe  High  Priest  of  the  English  suspension  of  judgment  is  a  system. 

Creed,  le  gros  bon  sens,  with  the  /umen  siccum  Man  has  done  much  during  the  sixty-eight 

ac  purum  notionum  verarum.  He  seems  to  see  centuries  which  represent  his  history.  This 

the  injury  inflided  upon  the  sum  of  thought  assumes  the  first  Egyptian  Empire,  following 

by  the  h  posteriori  superstition,  the  worship  the  pre-historic,  to  begin  with  b.  c.  5000,  and 

of  "fads,"  and  the  deification  of  synthesis,  to  end  with  B.c.3249.  It  was  the  Old,  as  op- 

Lastly,camethereckless  way  in  which  Locke  posed  to  the  Middle,  the  New,  and  the  Low: 

"freed  philosophy  from  the  incubus  of  innate  it  contained  the  Dynasties  from  I  to  X,  and 

ideas."  Like  Luther  and  the  leaders  of  the  it  was  the  age  ofthe  Pyramids,  at  once  simple, 


[35] 


NOTES 


solid,  and  grand.  When  thepraiser  of  the  Past 
contends  that  modern  civilization  has  im- 
proved in  nothing  upon  Homer  and  H  erodo- 
tus,  he  is  apt  to  forget  that  every  schoolboy 
is  a  miracle  of  learning  compared  with  the 
Cave-man  and  the  paleolithic  race.  And,  as 
the  Past  has  been,  so  shall  the  Future  be. 

The  Pilgrim's  view  of  life  is  that  of  the  Soofi, 
with  the  usual  dash  of  Buddhistic  pessimism. 
The  profound  sorrow  of  existence,  so  often 
sung  by  the  dreamy  Eastern  poet,  has  now 
passed  into  the  practical  European  mind. 
Even  the  light  Frenchman  murmurs,— 

Moi,  moi,  chaque  jour  courbant  plus  bas  ma  tete 
Je  passe— et  refroidi  sous  ce  soleil  joyeux, 

Je  m'en  irai  bientot,  au  milieu  de  la  fete, 
Saos  que  rien  manque  au  monde  immense  et  radieux. 

But  our  Haji  is  not  nihilistic  in  the  "no-noth- 
ing" sense  of  Hood's  poem,  or,  as  the  Amer- 
ican phrases  it, "There  is  nothing  new,  noth- 
ing true,and  it  do  n't  signify."  His  is  a  healthy 
wail  over  the  shortness,  and  the  miseries  of 
life,  because  he  finds  all  created  things- 
Measure  the  World,  with  "Me"  immense. 

HeremindsusofSt.Augustine(Med.c.2i). 
"Vita  haeCjvita  misera,vita  caduca,  vita  incer- 
ta,  vita  laboriosa,  vita  immunda,  vita  domina 
malorum,  regina  superborum,  plena  miseriis 
et  erroribus  .  .  .  Quam  humores  tumidant, 
escae  inflant,  jejunia  macerant,  joci  dissolvunt, 
tristitiae  consumunt;  sollicitudo  coardlat,  se- 
curitas  hebetat,divitia2  inflant  et  jadant.  Pau- 
pertas  dejicit,  juventus  extollit,  seneftus  in- 
curvat,  importunitas  frangit,  maeror  deprimit. 
Et  his  malis  omnibus  morsfuribundasucced- 
it."  But  for  furibunda  the  Pilgrim  would, 
perhaps,  read  benediSla. 

With  Cardinal  Newman,  one  of  the  glories 


of  our  age,  Haji  Abdu  finds  "the  Light  of  the 
world  nothing  else  than  the  Prophet's  scroll, 
full  of  lamentations  and  mourning  and  woe." 
I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  all  this  fine  pas- 
sage, if  it  be  only  for  the  sake  of  its  lame  and 
shallow  deduction.  "To  consider  the  world 
in  its  length  and  breadth,  its  various  history 
and  the  many  races  of  men,  their  starts,  their 
fortunes,  their  mutual  alienation,  their  con- 
fli(5ts,  and  then  their  ways,  habits,  govern- 
ments, forms  of  worship;  their  enterprises, 
their  aimless  courses,  their  random  achieve- 
ments and  acquirements,  the  impotent  con- 
clusion of  long-standing  fadls,  the  tokens  so 
faint  and  broken  of  a  superintending  design, 
the  blind  evolution  (!)  of  what  turn  out  to  be 
great  powers  or  truths,  the  progress  of  things 
as  if  from  unreasoning  elements,  not  towards 
final  causes;  the  greatness  and  littleness  of 
man,  his  far-reaching  aims  and  short  duration, 
the  curtain  hung  over  his  futurity,  the  disap- 
pointments of  life,  the  defeat  of  good,  the  suc- 
cess of  evil,  physical  pain,  mental  anguish,  the 
prevalence  and  intensity  of  sin,  the  pervading 
idolatries, the  corruptions,  the  dreary  hopeless 
irreligion,  that  condition  of  the  whole  race  so 
fearfully  yet  exaftly  described  in  the  Apos- 
tle's words, '  having  no  hope  and  without  God 
in  the  world'— d//  this  is  a  vision  to  dizzy  and 
appal.,  and  infliSls  upon  the  mind  the  sense  of  a 
profound  mystery  which  is  absolutely  without 
human  solution."  Hence  that  admirable  writer 
postulates  some  "terrible  original  calamity;" 
and  thus  the  hateful  dodrine,  theologically 
called  "original  sin,"  becomes  to  him  almost 
as  certain  as  that "  the  world  exists,  and  as  the 
existence  of  God."  Similarly  the  "  Schedule 
of  Dodtrines"  of  the  most  liberal  Christian 
Church  insists  upon  human  depravity,and  the 


[36] 


NOTES 


"absolute  need  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  agency  in 
man's  regeneration  and  sanftification." 

But  what  have  we  here?  The  "original  ca- 
lamity" was  either  caused  by  God  or  arose 
without  leave  of  God,in  either  case  degrading 
God  to  man.  It  is  the  old  dilemma  whose 
horns  are  the  irreconcilable  attributes  of  good- 
ness and  omniscience  in  the  supposed  Creator 
of  sin  and  suffering.  If  the  one  quality  be  pred- 
icable,  the  other  cannot  be  predicable  of  the 
same  subjedt.  Far  better  and  wiser  is  the  es- 
sayist's poetical  explanation  now  apparently 
despised  because  it  was  the  fashionable  doc- 
trine of  the  sage  bard's  day  :— 

All  nature  is  but  art  .  .  . 

All  discord  harmony  not  understood ; 

All  partial  evil  universal  good.— (Essay  289-292.) 

The  Pilgrim  holds  with  St.  Augustine  Abso- 
Uite  Evil  is  impossible  because  it  is  always 
rising  up  into  good.  He  considers  the  theory 
of  a  beneficent  or  maleficent  deity  a  purely 
sentimental  fancy,  contradi(5ted  by  human  rea- 
son and  the  aspedl  of  the  world.  Evil  is  often 
the  adtive  form  of  good ;  as  F.  W.  Newman 
says,  "so  likewise  is  Evil  the  revelation  of 
Good."  With  him  all  existences  are  equal:  so 
Jong  as  they  possess  the  Hindu  Agasa,  Life- 
fluid  or  vital  force,  it  matters  not  they  be,— 
Fungus  or  oak  or  worm  or  man. 

War,  he  says,  brings  about  countless  individ- 
ual miseries,  but  it  forwards  general  progress 
by  raising  the  stronger  upon  the  ruins  of  the 
weaker  races.  Earthquakes  and  cyclones  rav- 
age small  areas;  but  the  former  builds  up 
earth  for  man's  habitation,  and  the  latter  ren- 
ders the  atmosphere  fit  for  him  to  breathe. 
Hence  he  echoes: 

—The  universal  Cause 
Afts  not  by  partial  but  by  general  laws. 


Ancillary  to  the  churchman's  immoral  view 
of"  original  sin  "is  the  unscientific  theory  that 
evil  came  into  the  world  with  Adam  and  his 
seed.  Let  us  ask  what  was  the  state  of  our 
globe  in  the  pre- Adamite  days,  when  the  ty- 
rants of  the  Earth, the  huge  Saurians  and  other 
monsters  lived  in  perpetual  strife,  in  a  de- 
stru6liveness  of  which  we  have  now  only  the 
feeblest  examples?  What  is  the  aftual  state  of 
the  world  of  waters,  where  the  only  obje6l  of 
life  is  death,  where  the  Law  of  murder  is  the 
Law  of  Development? 

Some  will  charge  the  Hajiwith  irreverence, 
and  hold  him  a  "lieutenant  of  Satan  who  sits 
in  the  chair  of  pestilence."  But  he  is  not  in- 
tentionally irreverent.  Like  men  of  far  higher 
strain,who  deny  divinely  the  divine,  he  speaks 
the  things  that  others  think  and  hide.  With 
the  author  of  "Supernatural  Religion,"  he 
holds  that  we  "gain  infinitely  more  than  we 
lose  in  abandoning  belief  in  the  reality  of 
revelation;"  and  he  looks  forward  to  the 
day  when  "the  old  tyranny  shall  have  been 
broken,  and  when  the  anarchy  of  transition 
shall  have  passed  away."  But  he  is  an  Eastern. 
When  he  repeats  the  Greek's  "Remember 
not  to  believe,"  he  means  Strive  to  learn,  to 
know,  for  right  ideas  lead  to  right  adions. 
Among  the  couplets  not  translated  for  this 
eclogue  is:— 

Of  all  the  safest  ways  of  Life  the  safest  way  is  still 

to  doubt. 
Men  win  the  future  world  with  Faith,  the  present 

world  they  win  without. 

This  is  the  Spaniard's  :— 

De  las  cosas  mas  seguras,  mas  seguro  es  duvidar ; 

a  typically  modern  sentiment  of  the  Brazen 
Age  of  Science  following  the  Golden  Age  of 
Sentiment.  But  the  Pilgrim  continues:— 


[37] 


NOTES 


The  sages  say  :  I  tell  thee  no  !  with  equal  faith  all 

Faiths  receive ; 
None  more,  none  less,  for  Doubt  is  Death :  they 

live  the  most  who  most  believe. 

Here  again  is  an  oriental  subtlety;  a  man 
who  believes  in  everything  equally  and  gen- 
erally may  be  said  to  believe  in  nothing.  It  is 
not  a  simple  European  view  which  makes 
honest  Doubt  worth  a  dozen  of  the  Creeds. 
And  it  is  in  direft  opposition  to  the  noted 
writer  who  holds  that  the  man  of  simple  faith 
is  worth  ninety-nine  of  those  who  hold  only 
to  the  egotistic  interests  of  their  own  individ- 
uality. This  dark  saying  means  ( if  it  mean 
anything),  that  the  so-called  moral  faculties 
of  man,  fancy  and  ideality,  must  lord  it  over 
the  perceptive  and  refleftive  powers,— a  sim- 
ple absurdity!  It  produced  a  Turricremata, 
alias  Torquemada,  who,  shedding  floods  of 
honest  tears,  caused  his  vidims  to  be  burnt 
alive ;  and  an  Anchieta,  the  Thaumaturgist  of 
Brazil,  who  beheaded  a  converted  heretic  lest 
the  latter  by  lapse  from  grace  lose  his  immor- 
tal soul. 

But  this  vein  of  speculation,  which  bigots 
brandas"Doubt,  Denial,  and  Destru6tion;" 
this  earnest  religious  scepticism;  this  curious 
inquiry,"  Has  the  universal  tradition  any  base 
of  fadl  ? " ;  this  craving  after  the  secrets  and 
mysteries  of  the  future,  the  unseen,  the  un- 
known, is  common  to  all  races  and  to  every 
age.  Even  amongst  the  Romans,whose  model 
man  in  Augustus'  day  was  Horace,  the  philo- 
sophic, the  epicurean, we  find  Propertius  ask- 
ing:- 

An  fifta  in  miseras  descendit  fabula  gentes 
Et  timor  haud  ultra  quam  rogus  esse  potest  ? 

To  return:  the  Pilgrim's  dodlrines  upon 
the  subjedt  of  conscience  and  repentance  will 


startle  those  who  do  not  follow  his  train  of 
thought :  — 

Never  repent  because  thy  will  with  will  of  Fate  be 

not  at  one  : 
Thmk,  an  thou  please,  before  thou  (lost,  but  never 

rue  the  deed  when  done. 

This  again  is  his  modified  fatalism.  Hewould 
not  accept  the  boisterous  mode  of  cutting  the 
Gordian-knot  proposed  by  the  noble  British 
Philister— "we  know  we 're  free  and  there's 
an  end  on  it!"  He  prefers  Lamarck's, "The 
will  is,  in  truth,  never  free."  He  believes  man 
to  be  a  co-ordinate  term  of  Nature's  great  pro- 
gression ;  a  result  of  the  interadtion  of  organ- 
ism and  environment,  working  through  cos- 
mic sedlions  of  time.  He  views  the  human 
machine,  the  pipe  of  flesh,  as  depending  upon 
the  physical  theory  of  life.  Every  corporeal 
fad:  and  phenomenon  which,  like  the  tree, 
grows  from  within  orwithout,  is  a  mere  prod- 
u6l  of  organization ;  living  bodies  being  sub- 
jed:  to  the  natural  law  governing  the  lifeless 
and  the  inorganic.  Whilst  the  religionist  as- 
sures us  that  man  is  not  a  mere  toy  of  fate, 
but  a  free  agent  responsible  to  himself,  with 
work  to  do  and  duties  to  perform,  the  Haji, 
with  many  modern  schools,  holds  Mind  to  be 
a  word  describing  a  special  operation  of  mat- 
ter; the  faculties  generally  to  be  manifesta- 
tions of  movements  in  the  central  nervous 
system ;  and  every  idea,  even  of  the  Deity,  to 
be  a  certain  little  pulsation  of  a  certain  little 
mass  of  animal  pap,— the  brain.  Thus  he 
would  not  objed  to  relationship  with  a  tailless 
catarrhine  anthropoid  ape,  descended  from  a 
monad  or  a  primal  ascidian. 

Hence  he  virtually  says, "  I  came  into  the 
world  without  having  applied  for  or  having 
obtained  permission ;  nay,  more, without  my 


[38] 


NOTES 


leave  being  asked  or  given.  Here  I  find  my- 
self hand-tied  by  conditions,  and  fettered  by 
laws  and  circumstances,  in  making  which  my 
voice  had  no  part.  While  in  the  womb  I  was 
an  automaton ;  and  death  will  find  me  a  mere 
machine.  Therefore  not  I,  but  the  Law,  or,  if 
you  please,  the  Lawgiver,  is  answerable  for  all 
my  actions."  Let  me  here  observe  that  to  the 
Western  mind  "Law"  postulates  a  Lawgiver; 
not  so  to  the  Eastern,  and  especially  to  the 
Soofi,who  holds  these  ideas  to  be  human,  un- 
justifiably extended  to  interpreting  the  non- 
human,  which  men  call  the  Divine. 

Further  he  would  say, "  I  am  an  individual 
(qui  nil  habet  dividui),  a  circle  touching  and 
intersefting  my  neighbours  at  certain  points, 
but  nowhere  corresponding,  nowhere  blend- 
ing. Physically  I  am  not  identical  in  all  points 
with  other  men.  Morally  I  differ  from  them: 
in  nothing  do  the  approaches  of  knowledge, 
my  five  organs  of  sense  ( with  their  Shelleyan 
"  interpretation  " ),  exadly  resemble  those  of 
any  other  being,  ^rj'o,  the  effedt  of  the  world, 
of  life,  of  natural  objeds,  will  not  in  my  case 
be  the  same  as  with  the  beings  most  resem- 
bling me.  Thus  I  claim  the  right  of  creating 
or  modifying  for  my  own  and  private  use,  the 
system  which  most  imports  me ;  and  if  the 
reasonable  leave  be  refused  to  me,  I  take  it 
without  leave. 

"But  my  individuality,  however  all-sufH- 
cient  for  myself,  is  an  infinitesimal  point,  an 
atom  subjedt  in  all  things  to  the  Law  of  Storms 
called  Life.  I  feel,  I  know  that  Fate  is.  But 
I  cannot  know  what  is  or  what  is  not  fated  to 
befall  me.  Therefore  in  the  pursuit  of  perfec- 
tion as  an  individual  lies  my  highest,  and  in- 
deed my  only  duty, the*  I '  being  duly  blended 
with  the '  We.'  I  objed  to  be  a '  selfless  man,' 


which  to  me  denotes  an  inverted  moral  sense. 
I  am  bound  to  take  careful  thought  concern- 
ing the  consequences  of  every  word  and  deed- 
When,  however,  the  Future  has  become  the 
Past,  it  would  be  the  merest  vanity  for  me  to 
grieve  or  to  repent  over  that  which  was  de- 
creed by  universal  Law." 

The  usual  objection  is  that  of  man's  prac- 
tice. 1 1  says, "This  is  well  in  theory ;  but  how 
carry  it  out?  For  instance,  why  would  you 
kill,  or  give  over  to  be  killed,  the  man  com- 
pelled by  Fate  to  kill  your  father?"  Haji 
Abdu  replies,"!  do  as  others  do, not  because 
the  murder  was  done  by  him,  but  because 
the  murderer  should  not  be  allowed  another 
chance  of  murdering.  He  is  a  tiger  who  has 
tasted  blood  and  who  should  be  shot.  I  am 
convinced  that  he  was  a  tool  in  the  hands 
of  Fate,  but  that  will  not  prevent  my  taking 
measures,  whether  predestined  or  not,  in  or- 
der to  prevent  his  being  similarly  used  again." 

Aswith  repentance  so  with  conscience.  Con- 
science may  be  a  "fear  which  is  the  shadow  of 
justice;"  even  as  pity  is  the  shadow  of  love. 
Though  simply  a  geographical  and  chrono- 
logical accident,which  changes  with  every  age 
of  the  world,  it  may  deter  men  from  seeking 
and  securing  the  prize  of  successful  villainy. 
But  this  incentive  to  beneficence  must  be  ap- 
plied to  adions  that  will  be  done,  not  to  deeds 
that  have  been  done. 

The  Haji,  moreover,  carefully  distinguishes 
between  the  working  of  fate  under  a  personal 
God,  and  under  the  Reign  of  Law.  In  the 
former  case  the  contradidlion  between  the 
foreknowledge  of  a  Creator,  and  the  free-will 
of  a  Creature,  is  direc5t,  palpable,  absolute. 
We  might  as  well  talk  of  black-whiteness  and 
of  white-blackness.  A  hundred  generations 


[39] 


NOTES 


of  divines  have  never  been  able  to  ree  the 
riddle ;  a  million  will  fail.  The  difficulty  is  in- 
surmountable to  the  Theist  whose  Almighty- 
is  perforce  Omniscient,  and  as  Omniscient, 
Prescient.  But  it  disappears  when  we  convert 
the  Person  into  Law,  or  a  settled  order  of 
events ;  subje6t,  moreover,  to  certain  excep- 
tions fixed  and  immutable,  but  at  present  un- 
known to  man.  The  difference  is  essential  as 
that  between  the  penal  code  with  its  narrow 
forbiddal,and  the  broad  commandment  which 
is  a  guide  rather  than  a  task-master. 

Thus,  too,  the  belief  in  fixed  Law,  versus 
arbitrary  will,  modifies  the  Haji's  opinions 
concerning  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Man- 
kind, das  rastlose  Ursachenthier,  is  born  to  be 
on  the  whole  equally  happy  and  miserable. 
The  highest  organisms,  the  fine  porcelain  of 
ourfamily,enjoythe  most  and  suffer  the  most: 
they  have  a  capacity  for  rising  to  the  empy- 
rean of  pleasure  and  for  plunging  deep  into 
the  swift-flowing  river  of  woe  and  pain.  Thus 
Dante  ( I  nf.  vi.  1 06 ) : 

—  tua  scienza 
Che  vuol,  quanto  la  cosa  e  piu  perfetta 
Piu  senta  '1  bene,  e  cosi  la  doglienza. 

So  Buddhism  declares  that  existence  in  itself 
implies  effort,pain  and  sorrow;and,the  higher 
the  creature,  the  more  it  suffers.  The  common 
clay  enjoys  little  and  suffers  little.  Sum  up 
the  whole  and  distribute  the  mass;  the  result 
will  be  an  average;  and  the  beggar  is,  on  the 
whole,  happy  as  the  prince.  Why,  then,  asks 
the  objedtor,does  man  everstrive  and  struggle 
to  change,  to  rise;  a  struggle  which  involves 
the  idea  of  improving  his  condition  ?,  The 
Haji  answers, "  Because  such  is  the  Law  un- 
der which  man  is  born:  it  may  be  fierce  as 
famine, cruel  as  the  grave,  but  man  must  obey 


it  with  blind  obedience."  He  does  not  enter 
into  the  question  whether  life  is  worth  living, 
whether  man  should  eledl  to  be  born.  Yet  his 
Eastern  pessimism,which  contrasts  so  sharply 
with  the  optimism  of  the  West,  re-echoes  the 

With  large  results  so  little  rife. 
Though  bearable  seems  hardly  worth 
This  pomp  of  words,  this  pain  of  birth. 

Life,  whatever  may  be  its  consequence,  is 
built  upon  a  basis  of  sorrow.  Literature,  the 
voice  of  humanity,  and  the  verdidt  of  man- 
kind proclaim  that  all  existence  is  a  state  of 
sadness.  The"physicians  of  the  Sour'would 
save  her  melancholy  from  degenerating  into 
despair  by  doses  of  steadfast  belief  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Godjin  the  assurance  of  Immortahty, 
and  in  visions  of  the  final  viftory  of  good. 
Were  Haji  Abdu  a  mere Theologist,he  would 
add  that  Sin,  not  the  possibility  of  revolt,  but 
the  revolt  itself  against  conscience,  is  the  pri- 
mary form  of  evil,  because  it  produces  error, 
moral  and  intelledtual.  This  man,  who  omits 
to  read  the  Conscience-law,  however  it  may 
differ  from  the  Society-law,  is  guilty  of  negli- 
gence. That  man,  who  obscures  the  light  of 
Nature  with  sophistries,  becomes  incapable 
of  discerning  his  own  truths.  In  both  cases 
error,  deliberately  adopted,  is  succeeded  by 
suffering  which,  we  are  told,  comes  in  justice 
and  benevolence  as  a  warning,  a  remedy,  and 
a  chastisement. 

But  the  Pilgrim  is  dissatisfied  with  the  idea 
that  evil  originates  in  the  individual  adtions  of 
free  agents,  ourselves  and  others.  This  doc- 
trine fails  to  account  for  its  charadleristics,— 
essentiality  and  universality.  That  creatures 
endowed  with  the  mere  possibility  of  liberty 
should  not  always  choose  the  Good  appears 


[40] 


NOTES 


natural.  But  that  of  the  milliards  of  human 
beings  who  have  inhabited  the  Earth,  not  one 
should  have  been  found  invariably  to  choose 
Good,  proves  how  insufficient  is  the  solution. 
Hence  no  one  believes  in  the  existence  of 
the  complete  man  under  the  present  state  of 
things.TheHajirejeds  all  popular  and  myth- 
ical explanation  by  the  Fall  of  "Adam, "the  in- 
nate depravity  of  human  nature,and  the  abso- 
lute perfedlion  of  certain  Incarnations, which 
argues  theirdivinity.  He  canonly  wail  overthe 
prevalence  of  evil,  assume  its  foundation  to 
be  error,  and  purpose  to  abate  it  by  uproot- 
ing that  Ignorance  which  bears  and  feeds  it. 

His  "  eschatology,"  like  that  of  the  Soofis 
generally,isvague  and  shadowy.  He  may  lean 
towards  the  dodrine  of  Marc  Aurelius,"  The 
unripe  grape,  the  ripe  and  the  dried :  all  things 
are  changes  not  into  nothing,  but  into  that 
which  is  not  at  present."  This  is  one  of  the 
monstruosa  opinionum  portenta  mentioned  by 
the  XlXth  General  Council,  alias  the  First 
Council  of  the  Vatican.  But  he  only  accepts  it 
with  a  limitation.  He  cleaves  to  the  ethical, 
not  the  intelledhial,  worship  of  "  Nature," 
which  moderns  define  to  be  an  "unscientific 
and  imaginary  synonym  for  the  sum  total 
of  observed  phenomena."  Consequently  he 
holds  to  the  "  dark  and  degrading  dodlrines 
of  the  Materialist,"  the  "Hylotheist;"  in  op- 
position to  the  spiritualist,  a  distinftion  far 
more  marked  in  the  West  than  in  the  East. 
Europe  draws  a  hard,  dry  line  between  Spirit 
and  Matter :  Asia  does  not. 

Among  us  the  Idealist  objefts  to  the  Mate- 
rialists that  the  latter  cannot  agree  upon  fun- 
damental points ;  that  they  cannot  define  what 
is  an  atom;  that  they  cannot  account  for  the 
transformation  of  physical  adlion  and  molecu- 


lar motion  into  consciousness ;  and  vice  versh^ 
that  they  cannotsay  what  matteris;and,lastly, 
that  Berkeley  and  his  school  have  proved  the 
existenceofspiritwhiledenyingthatof  matter. 

The  Materialists  reply  that  the  want  of 
agreement  shows  only  a  study  insufficiently 
advanced;  that  man  cannot  describe  an  atom, 
because  he  is  still  an  infant  in  science,  yet 
there  is  no  reason  why  his  mature  manhood 
should  not  pass  through  error  and  incapacity 
to  truth  and  knowledge;  that  consciousness 
becomes  a  property  of  matter  when  certain 
conditions  are  present;  that  Hyle  {ykt])  or 
Matter  may  be  provisionally  defined  as  "  phe- 
nomena with  a  substrudture  of  their  own,  tran- 
scendental and  eternal,  subjedt  to  the  adlion, 
dired:  or  indired,  of  the  five  senses,  whilst  its 
properties  present  themselves  in  three  states, 
the  solid,  the  liquid,  and  the  gaseous."  To 
casuistical  Berkeley  they  prefer  the  common 
sense  of  mankind.  They  ask  the  idealist  and 
the  spiritualist  why  they  cannot  find  names  for 
themselves  without  borrowing  from  a  "dark 
and  degraded"  school;  why  the  former  must 
call  himself  after  his  eye  {idein);  the  latter 
after  his  breath (j^/r//aj)  ?  Thus  the  Haji  twits 
them  with  affixing  their  own  limitations  to 
their  own  Almighty  Power,  and,  as  Socrates 
said, with  bringing  down  Heaven  to  the  mar- 
ket-place. 

Modern  thought  tends  more  and  more  to 
rejed  crude  idealism  and  to  support  the  mon- 
istic theory,the  double  aspe(5t,the  transfigured 
realism.  It  discusses  the  Nature  of  Things  in 
Themselves. Tothequestion,isthereanything 
outside  of  us  which  corresponds  with  our  sen- 
sations ?  that  is  to  say,  is  the  whole  world  sim- 
ply "  I,"  they  reply  that  obviously  there  is  a 
something  else ;  and  that  this  something  else 


[41] 


NOTES 


produces  the  brain-disturbancewhich  is  called 
sensation.  I  nstindt  orders  us  to  do  something ; 
Reason  (the  balance  of  faculties)  diredts;  and 
the  strongest  motive  controls.  Modern  Sci- 
ence, by  the  discovery  of  Radiant  Matter,  a 
fourth  condition,  seems  to  conciliate  the  two 
schools.  "  La  decouverte  d'un  quatrieme  etat 
de  lamatiere,"says  a  Reviewer, "c'est  la  porte 
ouverte  a  I'infini  de  ses  transformations;  c'est 
I'homme  invisible  et  impalpable  de  meme 
possible  sans  cesser  d'etre  substantiel ;  c'est 
le  monde  des  esprits  entrant  sans  absurdite 
dans  la  domaine  des  hypotheses  scientifiques; 
c'est  la  possibilite  pour  le  materialiste  de  croire 
a  la  vie  d'outre  tombe,sans  renoncer  au  sub- 
stratum materiel  qu'il  croit  necessaire  au  main- 
tien  de  I'individualite." 

With  Haji  Abdu  the  soul  is  not  material, 
for  that  would  be  a  contradiction  of  terms.  He 


ulties ;  nor  can  we  afford  to  ignore  the  senti- 
ments, the  affeftions  which  are,  perhaps,  the 
most  potent  realities  of  life.  Their  loud  af- 
firmative voice  contrasts  strongly  with  the  tit- 
ubant  accents  of  the  intelleft.  They  seem  to 
demand  a  future  life,  even  a  state  of  rewards 
and  punishmentsfrom  the  Maker  of  theworld, 
the  Ortolano  Eterno^  the  Potter  of  the  East, 
the  Watchmaker  of  the  West.  They  protest 
against  the  idea  of  annihilation.  They  revolt 
at  the  notion  of  eternal  parting  from  parents, 
kinsmen  and  friends.  Yet  the  dogma  of  a  fu- 
ture life  is  by  no  means  catholic  and  universal. 
The  Anglo-European  race  apparently  cannot 
exist  without  it,  and  we  have  lately  heard  of 
the  "Aryan  Soul-land,"  On  the  other  hand, 
many  of  the  Buddhist  and  even  the  Brahman 
Schools  preach  Nirwana  (comparative  non- 
existence)and  Parinirwana(absolute  nothing- 


regards  it,  with  many  moderns,  as  a  state  of     ness).  Moreover,  the  great  Turanian  family. 


things,  not  a  thing;  a  convenient  word  denot- 
ingthe  sense  of  personality,of  individual  iden- 
tity. In  its  ghostly  signification  he  discovers 
an  artificial  dogma  which  could  hardly  belong 
to  the  brutal  savages  of  the  Stone  Age,  He 
finds  it  in  the  funereal  books  of  ancient  Egypt, 
whence  probably  it  passed  to  the  Zendavesta 
and  the  Vedas.  In  the  Hebrew  Pentateuch, of 
which  part  is  still  attributed  to  Moses,it  is  un- 
known, or,  rather,it  is  deliberately  ignored  by 
the  author  or  authors.  The  early  Christians 
could  not  agree  upon  the  subjedt;  Origen 
advocated  the  pre-existence  of  men's  souls, 
supposing  them  to  have  been  all  created  at 
one  time  and  successively  embodied.  Others 
make  Spirit  born  with  the  hour  of  birth:  and 
so  forth. 

But  the  brain-aftion  or,  if  you  so  phrase  it, 
the  mind, is  not  confined  to  the  reasoning  fac- 


adtually  occupying  all  Eastern  Asia,  has  ever 
ignored  it ;  and  the  200,000,000  of  Chinese 
Confucians,  the  mass  of  the  nation,  protest 
emphatically  against  the  mainstay  of  the  west- 
ern creeds, because  it"unfits  men  for  the  busi- 
ness and  duty  of  life  by  fixing  their  specula- 
tions on  an  unknown  world,"  And  even  its 
votaries,  in  all  ages,  races  and  faiths,  cannot 
deny  that  the  next  world  is  a  copy,  more  or 
less  idealized,  of  the  present;  and  that  it  lacks 
a  single  particularsavouring  of  originality.  It 
is  in  fad:  a  mere  continuation :  and  the  con- 
tinuation is  "not  proven." 

It  is  most  hard  to  be  a  man ; 

and  the  Pilgrim's  sole  consolation  isin  self-cul- 
tivation, and  in  the  pleasures  of  the  affections. 
This  sympathy  may  be  an  indirect  self-love,  a 
refle6tion  of  the  light  of  egotism;  still  it  is  so 


{  locatus  est  in 

>  The  Eternal  Gardener :  »o  the  old  inscription  saying ;  —  Homo  X  , 

'  •'    "  \  humatus  est  in 

\.  renatus  est  in 


borto 


[42] 


NOTES 


transferred  as  to  imply  a  different  system  of 
convidtions.  It  requires  a  different  name:  to 
call  benevolence  "self-love"  is  to  make  the 
fruit  or  flower  not  only  depend  upon  a  root  for 
development  (which  is  true ),  but  the  very  root 


itself  (which  is  false).  And,  finally,  his  ideal 
is  of  the  highest :  his  praise  is  reserved  for; 

—  Lives 
Lived  in  obedience  to  the  inner  law 
Which  cannot  alter. 


Note  II:  The  Kasidah  Itself 


A  few  words  concerning  the  Kasidah  itself. 
OurHajl  begins  with  a  ww-ifH-jf^w^;  and  takes 
leave  of  the  Caravan  setting  out  for  Mecca. 
He  sees  the  "Wolf's  tail "  {Dum-i-gurg),  the 
Xu/cauyc's,  or  wolf-gleam,  the  Diluculum,  the 
Zodiacal  dawn-light,  the  first  faint  brushes  of 
white  radiating  from  below  the  Eastern  hori- 
zon. 1 1  is  accompanied  by  the  morning-breath 
(Z)fl»«-/-<S'«M),thecurrentofair,almost  imper- 
ceptible except  by  the  increase  of  cold,  which 
Moslem  physiologists  suppose  to  be  the  early 
prayer  offered  by  Nature  to  the  First  Cause. 
The  Ghoul-i-Biyaban  (  Desert -Demon)  is 
evidently  the  personification  of  man's  fears 
and  of  the  dangers  that  surround  travelling  in 
the  wilds.  The  "wold-where-none-save-He 
(Allah)-can-dweH"  is  a  great  and  terrible  wil- 
derness ( Dasht-i-Ul-siwa  Hu ) ;  and  Allah's 
Holy  Hill  is  Arafat,  near  Mecca,  which  the 
Caravan  reaches  after  passing  through  Me- 
dina. The  first  se6Hon  ends  with  a  sore  lament 
that  the  "  meetings  of  this  world  take  place 
upon  the  highway  of  Separation ; "  and  the 
original  also  has  :  — 

The  chill  of  sorrow  numbs  my  thought :  methinks 

I  hear  the  passing  icnell ; 
As  dies  across  yon  thin  blue  line  the  tinkling  of  the 

Camel-bell. 

The  next  se(5tion  quotes  the  various  aspeds 
underwhichLifeappeared to  thewise  and  fool- 
ish teachers  of  humanity.  First  comes  Hafiz, 


whose  well-known  lines  are  quoted  beginning 
with  Shab-i-tarik  o  bim-i-mauj,  etc.  Hur  is 
the  plural  of  Ahwar,  in  full  Ahwar  el-Ayn,  a 
maid  whose  eyes  are  intensely  white  where 
they  should  be  white,  and  black  elsewhere : 
hence  our  silly  "  Houries."  Follows  Umar- 
i-Khayyam,  who  spiritualized  Tasawwof,  or 
Sooffeism,even  as  the  Soofis  (Gnostic)  spirit- 
ualized Moslem  Puritanism.  The  verses  al- 
luded to  are :  — 

You  know,  my  friends,  with  what  a  brave  carouse 
I  made  a  second  marriage  in  my  house. 

Divorced  old  barren  Reason  from  my  bed 
And  took  the  Daughter  of  the  Vine  to  spouse. 

(St.  60,  Mr.  Fitzgerald's  translation.) 

Here  "Wine"  is  used  in  its  mystic  sense  of 
entranced  Love  for  the  Soul  of  Souls.  Umar 
was  hated  and  feared  because  he  spoke  boldly 
when  his  brethren  the  Soofis  dealt  in  innuen- 
does. A  third  quotation  has  been  trained  into 
a  likeness  of  the  "Hymn  of  Life,"  despite 
the  commonplace  and  the  navrante  vulgar- 
it'e  which  charadlerize  the  pseudo-Schiller- 
Anglo-American  School.  The  same  has  been 
done  to  the  words  of  Isa  (Jesus ) ;  for  the  au- 
thor, who  is  well-read  in  the  Ingil  ( Evangel ), 
evidently  intended  the  allusion.  Mansur  el- 
Hallaj  the  (Cotton-Cleaner)  was  stoned  for 
crudely  uttering  the  Pantheistic  dogma  Ana 
'I  Hakk  ( I  am  the  Truth, ;.  e..,  God),  wa  lay- 
sa  fi-jubbati  W Allah  (and  within  my  coat  is 


[43] 


NOTES 


nought  but  God).  His  blood  traced  on  the 
ground  thefirst-quotedsentence.Lastly,there 
is  a  quotation  from  "Sardanapalus,son  of  An- 
acyndaraxes,"etc.:  here  Trai^e  may  mean  sport; 
but  the  context  determines  the  kind  of  sport 
intended.  The  Zahid  is  the  literal  believer  in 
the  letter  of  the  Law,  opposed  to  the  Soofi, 
who  believes  in  its  spirit:  hence  the  former 
is  called  a  Zahiri  (outsider),  and  the  latter  a 
Batini,  an  insider.  Moses  is  quoted  because 
he  ignored  future  rewards  and  punishments. 
As  regards  the  "two  Eternities,"  Persian  and 
Arab  metaphysicians  split  Eternity,  i.  e.,  the 
negation  of  Time,  into  two  halves,  y^z«/(be- 
ginninglessness)andy^^<2^(endlessness);both 
being  mere  words,  gatherings  of  letters  with 
a  subjective  significance.  In  English  we  use 
"Eternal"  [yEviternus,  age-long,  life-long) 
as  loosely,  by  applying  it  to  three  distinct 
ideas  :(i)  the  habitual,in  popular  parlance;  (2) 
the  exempt  from  duration ;  and  (3)  the  ever- 
lasting, which  embraces  all  duration.  "Omni- 
science-Maker" is  the  old  Roman  sceptic's 
Homo  fecit  Deos. 

The  next  sed;Ion  is  one  long  wail  over  the 
contradiftions,  the  mysteries,  the  dark  end, 
the  infinite  sorrowfulness  of  all  existence,and 
the  arcanum  of  grief  which,  Luther  said,  un- 
derlies all  life.  As  with  Euripides  "to  live  is 
to  die,  to  die  is  to  live."  Haji  Abdu  borrows 
the  Hindu  idea  of  the  human  body.  "  It  is 
a  mansion,"  says  Menu, "with  bones  for  its 
beams  and  rafters;  with  nerves  and  tendons 
for  cords ;  with  muscles  and  blood  for  cement; 
with  skin  for  its  outer  covering ;  filled  with  no 
sweet  perfume,  but  loaded  with  impurities ;  a 
mansion  infested  by  ageand  sorrow;  the  seat  of 
malady;  harassed  with  pains;  haunted  with  the 
quality  of  darkness(Tama-guna),  and  incapa- 


ble of  standing."  The  Pot  and  Potter  began 
with  the  ancient  Egyptians.  "  Sitting  as  a  pot- 
ter at  the  wheel,  Cneph  ( at  Philae)  moulds 
clay,  and  gives  the  spirit  of  life  to  the  nostrils 
of  Osiris."  Hence  the  Genesitic  "  breath." 
Then  we  meet  him  in  the  Vedas,  the  Being 
"  by  whom  the  fidlile  vase  is  formed ;  the  clay 
out  of  which  it  is  fabricated."  We  find  him 
next  in  Jeremiah's  "Arise  and  go  down  unto 
the  Potter's  house,"  etc.  ( xviii.  2  ),  and  lastly 
in  Romans  (ix.  20  ),  "  Hath  not  the  potter 
power  over  the  clay?"  No  wonder  that  the 
first  Hand  who  moulded  the  man-mud  is  a 
lieu  commun  in  Eastern  thought.  The  "waste 
of  agony"  is  Buddhism,  or  Schopenhauerism 
pure  and  simple,  I  have  moulded  "  Earth  on 
Earth"  upon  "Seint  Ysidre"  's  well-known 
rhymes  ( A.  d.  1440 )  :— 

Erthe  out  of  Erthe  is  wondirii  wrouzt, 

Erthe  of  Erthe  hath  gete  a  dignite  of  nouzt, 

Erthe  upon  Erthe  hath  sett  all  his  thouzt 

How  that  Erthe  upon  Erthe  may  be  his  brouzt,  etc. 

The  "  Camel-rider,"  suggests  Ossian,  "yet 
afewyearsand  the  blast  of  the  desert  comes." 
The  dromedary  was  chosen  as  Death's  vehicle 
by  the  Arabs,  probably  because  it  bears  the 
Bedouin's  corpse  to  thedistant  burial-ground, 
where  he  will  lie  among  his  kith  and  kin.  The 
end  of  this  sed:ion  reminds  us  of:  — 

How  poor,  how  rich ;  how  abjeft,  how  august. 
How  complicate,  how  wonderful  is  Man ! 

The  Haji  now  passes  to  the  results  of  his 
long  and  anxious  thoughts:  I  have  purposely 
twisted  his  exordium  into  an  echo  of  Milton:— 

Till  old  experience  doth  attain 
To  something  of  prophetic  strain. 

He  boldly  declares  that  there  is  no  God  as 
man  has  created  his  Creator.  Here  he  is  at 


[44]- 


NOTES 


one  with  modern  thought:—"  En  general  les 
croyants  font  le  Dieu  comme  ils  sont  eux- 
memes,"  (says  J.  J.  Rousseau, "Confessions," 
1 .  6 ) :  "  les  bons  le  font  bon :  les  mechants  le 
font  mechant:  les  devots  haineux  et  bilieux, 
ne  voient  que  I'enfer,  parce  qu'ils  voudraient 
damner  tout  le  monde;  les  ames  aimantes  et 
douces  n'y  croient  guere;  et  I'un  des  etonne- 
ments  dont  je  ne  reviens  pas  est  de  voir  le  bon 
FenelonenparlerdanssonTelemaquecomme 
s'il  y  croyoit  tout  de  bon:  mais  j'espere  qu'il 
mentoit  alors ;  car  enfin  quelque  veridique 
qu'on  soit,  il  faut  bien  mentir  quelquefois 
quand  on  est  eveque."  "  Man  depifts  himself 
in  his  gods,"  says  Schiller.  Hence  the  Natur- 
goU,  the  deity  of  all  ancient  peoples,  and  with 
which  every  system  began,  allowed  and  ap- 
proved of  actions  distinctly  immoral,  often 
diabolical.  Beliefbecame  moralizedonlywhen 
the  conscience  of  the  community,  and  with  it 
of  the  individual  items,  began  aspiring  to  its 
golden  age,—  Perfeftion.  "  Dieu  est  le  super- 
latif,  dont  le  positif  est  I'homme,"  says  Carl 
Vogt;  meaning,  that  the  popular  idea  of  a 
nutnen  is  that  of  a  magnified  and  non-natural 
man. 

He  then  quotes  his  authorities.  Buddha, 
whom  the  Catholic  Church  converted  to  Saint 
Josaphat,  refused  to  recognize  Ishwara(the 
deity),  on  account  ofthe  mystery  of  the  "cru- 
elty of  things."  Schopenhauer,  Miss  Cobbe's 
model  pessimist,who  at  the  humblestdistance 
represents  Buddha  in  the  world  of  Western 
thought,  found  the  vision  of  man's  unhappi- 
ness,  irrespedtive  of  his  adiions,  so  overpower- 
ing that  he  concluded  the  SupremeWill  to  be 
malevolent,  "  heartless,  cowardly,  and  arro- 
gant." Confucius,  the"Throneless  king,more 
powerful  than  all  kings,"  denied  a  personal 


deity.  The  Epicurean  idea  rules  the  China  of 
the  present  day.  "  God  is  great,  but  He  lives 
too  far  off,"  say  the  Turanian  Santals  in  Aryan 
India;  and  this  is  the  general  language  of  man 
in  the  Turanian  East. 

HajiAbdu  evidently  holds  that  idolatry  be- 
gins with  a  personal  deity.  And  let  us  note 
that  the  latter  is  deliberately  denied  by  the 
"  Thirty-nine  Articles."  With  them  God  is 
"  a  Being  without  Parts  (  personality )  or  Pas- 
sions." He  professes  a  vague  Agnosticism, 
and  attributes  popular  faith  to  the  fad  that 
Timor  fecit  Deos;  "every  religion  being,with- 
out  exception, the  child  offear  and  ignorance" 
(Carl  Vogt).  He  now  speaks  as  the  "Drawer 
of  Wine,"  the  "Ancient  Taverner,"  the  "  Old 
Magus,"  the  "Patron  ofthe  Mughan  or  Ma- 
gians;"  all  titles  applied  to  the  Soofi  as  op- 
posed to  the  Zahid.  His  "idols"  are  the  eidola 
(illusions)  of  Bacon, "having  their  founda- 
tions in  the  very  constitution  of  man,"  and 
therefore  appropriately  called  fabula.  That 
"Nature's  Common  Course"  is  subjedt  to 
various  interpretation,  may  be  easily  proved. 
Aristotle  was  as  great  a  subverter  as  Alexan- 
der; but  the  quasi-prophetical  Stagyrite  ofthe 
Dark  Ages,  who  ruled  the  world  till  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  became  the  "  twice 
execrable  "  of  Martin  Luther ;  and  was  finally 
abolished  by  Galileo  and  Newton. Here  I  have 
excised  two  stanzas.  The  first  is  :  — 

Theories  for  truths,  fable  for  faft ;  system  for  science 

vex  the  thought 
life 's  one  great  lesson  you  despise  —  to  know  that 

all  we  know  is  nought. 

This  is  in  fad:  — 

Well  didst  thou  say,  Athena's  noblest  son. 
The  most  we  know  is  nothing  can  be  known. 


[45] 


NOTES 


The  next  is  :  — 

Essence  and  substance,  sequence,  cause,  beginning, 
ending,  space  and  time. 

These  be  thetoys  of  manhood's  mind,  at  once  ridic- 
ulous and  sublime. 

He  is  not  the  only  one  who  so  regards 
"bothering  Time  and  Space."  A  late  defini- 
tion of  the"infinitelygreat,"viz., that  the  idea 
arises  from  denying  form  to  anyfigure;  of  the 
"infinitely  small/'from  refusing  magnitude  to 
any  figure,  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  "  dismal 
science  "—  metaphysics. 

Another  omitted  stanza  reads  :— 

How  canst  thou,  Phenomen !  pretend  the  Noume- 
non  to  mete  and  span  ? 

Say  which  were  easier  probed  and  proved.  Abso- 
lute Being  or  mortal  man  ? 

One  would  think  that  he  had  read  Kant  on 
the"  Knowableandthe  Unknowable,"  or  had 
heard  of  the  Yankee  lady,  who  could  "differ- 
entiate between  the  Finite  and  the  Infinite." 
It  is  a  commonplace  of  the  age,  in  the  West 
as  well  as  the  East,  that  Science  is  confined  to 
phenomena,  and  cannot  reach  the  Noumena, 
the  things  themselves.  This  is  the  scholastic 
realism,  the  "  residuum  of  a  bad  metaphysic," 
which  deforms  the  system  of  Comte.With  all 
its  pretensions, it  simply  means  that  there  are, 
or  can  be  conceived,  things  in  themselves  (/.^. 
unrelated  to  thought);  that  we  know  them  to 
exist;  and,  at  the  same  time,  that  we  cannot 
know  what  they  are.  But  who  dares  say  "can- 
not"? Who  can  measure  man's  work  when 
he  shall  be  as  superior  to  our  present  selves 
as  we  are  to  the  Cave-man  of  past  time  ? 

The  "Chain  of  Universe"  alludes  to  the 
Jain  idea  that  the  whole,  consisting  of  intel- 
ledtual  as  well  as  of  natural  principles,  existed 
from  all  eternity;  and  that  it  has  been  subjedt 


to  endless  revolutionSjWhose  causes  are  the  in- 
herent powers  of  nature,  intelledtual  as  well  as 
physical,  without  the  intervention  of  a  deity. 
But  the  Poet  ridicules  the  "  non-human,"  /.  e., 
the  not-ourselves,  the  negation  of  ourselves 
andconsequentlya  non-existence.  MostEast- 
erns  confuse  the  contradidlories,  in  which  one 
term  stands  for  something,  and  the  other  for 
nothing  (^.^.,  ourselves  and  not  ourselves), 
with  the  contraries  (f.^.,  rich  and  not  rich= 
poor),  in  which  both  terms  express  a  some- 
thing. So  the  positive-negative  "infinite"  is 
not  the  complement  of"  finite,"  but  its  nega- 
tion. The  Western  man  derides  the  process  by 
making  "  not-horse  "  the  complementary  en- 
tity of  "  horse."  The  Pilgrim  ends  with  the 
favourite  Soofi  tenet  that  the  five  ( six  ?)  senses 
are  the  doors  of  all  human  knowledge,  and 
that  no  form  of  man,  incarnation  of  the  deity, 
prophet,  apostle  or  sage,  has  ever  produced  an 
idea  not  conceived  within  his  brain  by  the  sole 
operation  of  these  vulgar  material  agents.  Evi- 
dently he  is  neither  spiritualist  nor  ideahst. 

He  then  proceeds  to  show  that  man  depidls 
himself  in  his  God,  and  that"  God  is  the  racial 
expression;"  a  pedagogue  on  the  Nile, an  ab- 
stra6tion  in  India,  and  an  astrologer  in  Chal- 
daea;  where  Abraham,saysBerosus(Josephus, 
Ant.  1. 7,  §2, and  II.  9,§2)  was"skilflil  in  the 
celestial  science."  He  notices  the  Akarana- 
Zaman  (endless  Time)  of  the  Guebres,  and 
the  working  dual,  Hormuzd  and  Ahriman. 
He  brands  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  with  pug- 
nacity and  cruelty.  He  has  heard  of  the  beau- 
tiful creations  of  Greek  fancy  which,  not  at- 
tributing a  moral  nature  to  the  deity, included 
Theology  in  Physics  ;  and  which,  like  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall,  seemed  to  consider  all  matter 
everywhere  alive.  We  have  adopted  a  very  dif- 


[46] 


NOTES 


ferent  Unitarianism;  Theology,  with  its  one 
Creator;  Pantheism  with  its"one  Spirit's  plas- 
tic stress;"  and  Science  with  its  one  Energy. 
He  is  hard  upon  Christianity  and  its  "trinal 
God : "  I  have  not  softened  his  expression 
( VMi^= a  riddle),  although  it  may  offend  read- 
ers. There  is  nothing  more  enigmatical  to 
the  Moslem  mind  than  Christian  Trinitar- 
ianism:  all  other  objedions  they  can  get  over, 
not  this.  Nor  is  he  any  lover  of  Islamism, 
which,  like  Christianity,  has  its  ascetic  He- 
braism and  its  Hellenic  hedonism;  with  the 
world  of  thought  moving  between  these  two 
extremes.Theformer,defined  as  predominant 
or  exclusive  care  for  the  pradtice  of  right,  is 
resented  by  Semitic  and  Arab  influence,  Ko- 
ranic and  Hadisic.  The  latter,  the  religion 
of  humanity,  a  passion  for  life  and  light,  for 
culture  and  intelligence ;  for  art,  poetry  and 
science,  is  represented  in  Islamism  by  the 
fondly  and  impiously-cherished  memory  of 
the  old  Guebre  kings  and  heroes,  beauties, 
bards  and  sages.  Hence  the  mention  of  Zal 
and  his  son  Rostam ;  of  Cyrus  and  of  the  Jam- 
i-Jamshid,whichmaybe  translatedeithergrail 
(cup)  or  mirror:  it  showed  the  whole  world 
within  its  rim;  and  hence  it  was  called  Jam-i- 
Jehan-numa  (universe-exposing).  The  con- 
temptuous expressions  about  the  diet  of  cam- 
el's milk  and  the  meat  of  the  Susmar,  or  green 
lizard,  are  evidently  quoted  from  Firdausi's 
famous  lines  beginning:  — 

Arab-ra  be-jai  rasid'est  kar. 

The  Haji  is  severe  upon  those  who  make 
of  the  Deity  a  Khwan-i-yaghma  (or  tray  of 
plunder)  as  the  Persians  phrase  it.  He  looks 
upon  the  shepherds  as  men, 

—Who  rob  the  sheep  themselves  to  clothe. 


So  Schopenhauer  (  Leben,  etc.,  by  Wilhelm 
Gewinner) furiously  shows  how  the"  English 
nation  ought  to  treat  that  set  of  hypocrites, 
imposters  and  money-graspers,  the  clergy, 
that  annually  devours  ^^3, 500,000." 

The  Haji  broadly  asserts  that  there  is  no 
Good  and  no  Evil  in  the  absolute  sense  as  man 
has  made  them.  Here  he  is  one  with  Pope:— 

And  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  nature's  spite 
One  truth  is  clear— whatever  is,  is  right. 

Unfortunately  the  converse  is  just  as  true:— 
whatever  is,  is  wrong.  Khizris  the  Elijah  who 
puzzled  Milman.  He  represents  the  Soofi, 
the  Batini, while  Musa  (Moses)  is  the  Zahid, 
theZahiri;  and  the  strange  adventures  of  the 
twain,  invented  by  the  Jews,  have  been  ap- 
propriated by  the  Moslems.  He  derides  the 
Freewill  of  man ;  and,  like  Diderot,  he  detedls 
"pantaloon  in  a  prelate, a  satyr  in  a  president, 
a  pig  in  a  priest,  an  ostrich  in  a  minister,  and 
a  goose  in  a  chief  clerk."  He  holds  to  For- 
tune, the  Tvx*]  of  Alcman,  which  is,  Ewo/Aias 
T€  Ktti  Xlei^ou?  dSeXi^a,  koI  Ilpofiad€La<;  dvy 
arqp,— Chance,  the  sister  of  O  rder  and  Trust, 
and  the  daughter  of  Forethought.  The  Scan- 
dinavian Spinners  of  Fate  were  Urd(theWas, 
the  Past),Verdandi  (the  Becoming, or  Pres- 
ent), and  Skuld  (the To-be,  or  Future).  He 
alludes  to  Plato,  who  made  the  Demiourgos 
create  the  worlds  by  the  Logos  (the  Hebrew 
Dabar)or  Creative  Word,  through  the  iEons. 
These  Aiwi^es  of  the  Mystics  were  spiritual 
emanations  from  Aicov,  lit.  a  wave  of  influx,an 
age,period,orday;  hence  the  Latin  «n;aw,and 
theWelshAwen,the  stream  of  inspiration  fall- 
ing upon  a  bard.  Basilides,  the  Egypto-Chris- 
tian,  made  the  Creator  evolve  seven  ^ons  or 
Pteromata  ( fulnesses ) ;  from  two  of  whom. 


[47] 


NOTES 


Wisdom  and  Power,  proceeded  the  365  de- 
grees of  Angels.  All  were  subjed  to  a  Prince 
of  Heaven,  called  Abraxas,  who  was  himself 
under  guidance  of  the  Chief  iEon,  Wisdom. 
Others  represent  the  first  Cause  to  have  pro- 
duced an  ^on  or  Pure  Intelligence ;  the  first 
a  second,  and  so  forth  till  the  tenth.  This  was 
material  enough  to  afFedt  Hyle, which  thereby 
assumed  a  spiritual  form. Thus  the  two  incom- 
patibles  combined  in  the  Scheme  of  Creation. 

He  denies  the  three  ages  of  the  Buddhists: 
the  wholly  happy;  the  happy  mixed  with  mis- 
ery,and  the  miserable  tinged  with  happiness,— 
the  present.  The  Zoroastrians  had  four,  each 
of  3,000  years.  In  the  first,  Hormuzd,  the 
good-god,ruledalone;  then  Ahriman,the  bad- 
god,  began  to  work  subserviently :  in  the  third 
both  ruled  equally;  and  in  the  last,  now  cur- 
rent, Ahriman  has  gained  the  day. 

Against  the  popular  idea  that  man  has  caused 
the  misery  of  this  world,  he  cites  the  ages,when 
the  Old  Red  Sandstone  bred  gigantic  cannibal 
fishes ;  when  the  Oolites  produced  the  mighty 
reptile  tyrants  of  air,  earth,  and  sea;  and  when 
the  monsters  of  the  Eocene  and  Miocene  pe- 
riods shook  the  ground  with  their  ponderous 
tread.  And  the  world  of  waters  is  still  a  hide- 
ous scene  of  cruelty,  carnage,  and  destrudtion. 

He  declares  Conscience  to  be  a  geographi- 
cal and  chronological  accident.  Thus  he  an- 
swers the  modern  philosopherwhose  soul  was 
overwhelmed  by  the  marvel  and  the  awe  of 
two  things, "  the  starry  heaven  above  and  the 
moral  law  within."  He  makes  the  latter  sense 
a  development  of  the  gregarious  and  social  in- 
stindls;  and  so  travellers  have  observed  that 
the  moral  is  the  last  step  in  mental  progress. 
His  Moors  are  the  savage  Dankali  and  other 
negroid  tribes,  who  offer  a  cup  of  milk  with 


one  hand  and  stab  with  the  other.  He  trans- 
lates literally  the  Indian  word  Hathi  (an  ele- 
phant), the  animal  with  the  Hath  (hand,  or 
trunk).  Finally  he  alludes  to  the  age  of  ad:ive 
volcanoes,  the  present,  which  is  merely  tem- 
porary, the  shifting  of  the  Pole,  and  the  spec- 
tacle to  be  seen  from  Mushtari,  or  the  planet 
Jupiter. 

The  Haji  again  asks  the  old,  old  question. 
What  is  Truth  ?  And  he  answers  himself,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  wise  Emperor  of  China, 
"Truth  hath  not  an  unchanging  name."  A 
modern  English  writer  says :  "  I  have  long 
been  convinced  by  the  experience  of  my  life, 
as  a  pioneer  of  various  heterodoxies  which  are 
rapidly  becoming  orthodoxies,  that  nearly  all 
truth  is  temperamental  to  us,  or  given  in  the 
affediions  and  intuitions;  and  that  discussion 
and  inquiry  do  little  more  than  feed  tempera- 
ment." Our  poet  seems  to  mean  that  the  Per- 
ceptions, when  they  perceive  truly,  convey 
objeftive  truth,  which  is  universal;  whereas 
the  Reflexives  and  the  Sentiments,  the  work- 
ing of  the  moral  region,  or  the  middle  lobe 
of  the  phrenologists,  supplies  only  subjective 
truth,  personal  and  individual.  Thus  to  one 
man  the  axiom.  Opes  irritamenta  malorum, 
represents  a  distinft  fadl;  while  another  holds 
wealth  to  be  an  incentive  for  good.  Evidently 
both  are  right,  according  to  their  lights. 

Haji  Abdu  cites  Plato  and  Aristotle,  as 
usual  with  Eastern  songsters,  who  delight  in 
Mantic  (logic).  Here  he  appears  to  mean  that 
a  false  proposition  is  as  real  a  proposition  as 
one  that  is  true.  "  Faith  moves  mountains  " 
and"Manetimmotafides"are  evidently  quo- 
tations. He  derides  the  teaching  ofthe"  First 
Council  of  the  Vatican"  (cap.  v.)"all  the  faith- 
ful are  little  children  listening  to  the  voice  of 


[48] 


NOTES 


St.  Peter,"  who  is  the  "  Prince  of  the  Apos- 
tles." He  glances  at  the  fancy  of  certain 
modern  physicists,  "devotion  is  a  definite 
molecular  change  in  the  convolution  of  grey 
pulp."  He  notices  with  contumely  the  riddle 
of  which  Milton  speaks  so  glibly,  where  the 
Dialoguists, 

—  reasoned  high 
Of  providence,  foreknowledge,  will  and  fate. 
Fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute. 

In  opposition  to  the  orthodox  Mohamme- 
dan tenets  which  make  Man's  soul  his  per- 
cipient Ego,  an  entity,  a  unity,  the  Soofi  con- 
siders it  a  fancy,  opposed  to  body,  which  is  a 
fad:;  at  most  a  state  of  things,  not  a  thing;  a 
concensus  of  faculties  whereof  our  frames  are 
but  the  phenomena.  This  is  not  contrary  to 
Genesitic  legend.  The  Hebrew  Ruach  and 
Arabic  Ruh,  now  perverted  to  mean  soul  or 
spirit,  simply  signify  wind  or  breath,  the  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  life.Their  later  schools 
are  even  more  explicit:  "  For  that  which  be- 
falls man  befalls  beasts;  as  the  one  dies,  so 
does  the  other;  they  have  all  one  death;  all  go 
untooneplace"(Eccles.iii.i9).  But  the  mod- 
ern soul,  a  nothing,  a  string  of  negations,  a 
negative  in  chief,  is  thus  described  in  the 
Mahabharat:"It  is  indivisible,inconceivable, 
inconceptible:  it  is  eternal,  universal,  perma- 
nent, immovable:  it  is  invisible  and  unalter- 
able." Hence  the  modern  spiritualism  which, 
rejecting  materialism,  can  use  only  material 
language. 

These,  says  the  Haji,are  mere  sounds.  He 
would  not  assert  "Verba  gignunt  verba,"  but 
"Verba  gignunt  res,"  a  step  further.  The  idea 
is  Bacon's"idola  fori,omnium  molestissima," 
the  twofold  illusions  of  language ;  either  the 


names  of  things  that  have  no  existence  in  faft, 
or  the  names  of  things  whose  idea  is  confused 
and  ill-defined. 

He  derives  the  Soul-idea  from  the  "savage 
ghost  "which  Dr.  Johnson  defined  to  be  a 
"kind  of  shadowy  being."  He  justly  remarks 
that  it  arose  (perhaps)  in  Egypt;  and  was  not 
invented  by  the  "People  of  the  Book."  By  this 
term  Moslems  denote  Jews  and  Christians 
who  have  a  recognized  revelation, while  their 
ignorance  reflxses  it  to  Guebres,  Hindus,  and 
Confucians. 

He  evidently  holds  to  the  doftrine  of  prog- 
ress. With  him  protoplasm  is  the  Yliastron, 
the  Prima  Materies.  Our  word  matter  is  de- 
rived from  the  Sanskrit  f{|  ^|  (matra),which, 
however,  signifies  properly  the  invisible  type 
of  visible  matter ;  in  modern  language,  the 
substance  distind;  from  the  sum  of  its  physical 
and  chemical  properties.  Thus,  Matra  exists 
only  in  thought,and  is  not  recognizable  by  the 
adUon  of  the  five  senses.  His"  Chain  of  Be- 
ing "  reminds  us  of  Prof.  Huxley's  Pedigree 
oftheHorse,Orohippus,Mesohippus,Meio- 
hippus,Protohippus,Pleiohippus  and  Equus. 
He  has  evidently  heard  of  modern  biology,  or 
Hylozoism,  which  holds  its  quarter-million 
species  of  living  beings,  animal  and  vegetable, 
to  be  progressive  modifications  of  one  great 
fundamental  unity,an  unity  of  so-called"men- 
tal  faculties"  as  well  as  of  bodily  strudture. 
And  this  is  the  jelly-speck.  He  scoffs  at  the 
popular  idea  that  man  is  the  great  central  fig- 
ure round  which  all  things  gyrate  like  mari- 
onettes; in  fad,  the  anthropocentric  era  of 
Draper,which,  strange  to  say,  lives  by  the  side 
of  the  telescope  and  the  microscope.  As  man 
is  of  recent  origin,  and  may  end  at  an  early 
epoch  of  the  macrocosm,  so  before  his  birth 


[49] 


NOTES 


all  things  revolved  round  nothing,  and  may 
continue  to  do  so  after  his  death. 

The  Hajijwho  elsewhere  denounces  "com- 
pound ignorance,"  holds  that  all  evil  comes 
from  error;  and  that  all  knowledge  has  been 
developed  by  overthrowing  error,  the  ordi- 
nary channel  of  human  thought.  He  ends  this 
sedtion  with  a  great  truth.  There  are  things 
which  human  Reason  or  Instind:  matured,  in 
its  undeveloped  state,cannot  master;  but  Rea- 
son is  a  Law  to  itself.  Therefore  we  are  not 
bound  to  believe,  or  to  attempt  belief  in,  any 
thing  which  is  contrary  or  contradictory  to 
Reason.  Here  he  is  diametrically  opposed  to 
Rome, who  says,"Do  not  appeal  to  History; 
that  is  private  judgment.  Do  not  appeal  to 
Holy  Writ;  that  is  heresy.  Do  not  appeal  to 
Reason;  that  is  Rationalism." 

He  holds  with  the  Patriarchs  of  Hebrew 
Holy  Writ,  that  the  present  life  is  all-suffi- 
cient for  an  intelleftual  ( not  a  sentimental ) 
being;  and,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  want  of 
a  Heaven  or  a  Hell.  With  far  more  contra- 
diftion  the  Western  poet  sings:— 

Hell  hath  no  limits,  nor  is  circumscribed 
In  one  self-place;  but  when  we  are  in  hell. 
And  where  hell  is  there  must  we  ever  be. 
And,  to  be  short,  when  all  this  world  dissolves. 
And  every  creature  shall  be  purified. 
All  places  shall  be  hell  which  are  not  heaven. 

For  what  want  is  there  of  a  Hell  when  all  are 
pure?  He  enlarges  upon  the  ancient  Bud- 
dhist theory,  that  Happiness  and  Misery  are 
equally  distributed  among  men  and  beasts ; 
some  enjoy  much  and  suffer  much;  others  the 
reverse.  Hence  Diderot  declares, "  Sober  pas- 
sions produce  only  the  commonplace  .  .  ,  the 
man  of  moderate  passion  lives  and  dies  like  a 
brute."  And  again  we  have  the  half-truth:— 


That  the  mark  of  rank  in  nature 
Is  capacity  for  pain. 

The  latter  implies  an  equal  capacity  for  pleas- 
ure, and  thus  the  balance  is  kept. 

Haji  AbdG  then  proceeds  to  showthat  Faith 
is  an  accident  of  birth.  One  of  his  omitted  dis- 
tichs  says :  —     , 

Race  makes  religion ;  true !  but  aye  upon  the  Maker 

afts  the  made, 
A  finite  God,  and  infinite  sin,  in  lieu  of  raising  man, 

degrade. 

In  a  manner  of  dialogue  he  introduces  the  va- 
rious races  each  fighting  to  establish  its  own 
belief  The  Frank  (Christian)  abuses  the  Hin- 
du,who  retorts  that  he  is  of  Mlenchha, mixed 
or  impure,  blood,  a  term  applied  to  all  non- 
Hindus.  The  same  is  done  by  Nazarene  and 
Mohammedan;  by  the  Confucian, who  be- 
lieves in  nothing,  and  by  the  Soofi,who  natu- 
rally has  the  last  word.  The  association  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  and  St.  Joseph  with  theTrinity, 
in  the  Roman  and  Greek  Churches,  makes 
many  Moslems  conclude  that  Christians  be- 
lieve not  in  three  but  in  five  Persons.  So 
an  Englishman  writes  of  the  early  Fathers, 
"Theynot  onlysaid  thatj  =  i,and  that  i  =3 : 
they  professed  to  explain  how  that  curious 
arithmetical  combination  had  been  brought 
about.  The  Indivisible  had  been  divided,  and 
yet  was  not  divided:  it  was  divisible,  and  yet 
it  was  indivisible;  black  was  white,  and  white 
was  black ;  and  yet  there  were  not  two  colours 
but  one  colour;  and  whoever  did  not  believe 
it  would  be  damned."  The  Arab  quotation 
runs  in  the  original:  — 

Ahsanu  'I-Makanijl  il-  Fata  'la-Jehanamu 

The  best  of  places  for  (the  generous)  youth  is 
Gehenna: 


[50] 


NOTES 


Gehenna,  alias  Jahim,  being  the  fiery  place  of 
eternal  punishment.  And  the  second  saying, 
Al-nar  wa  la '  l-'Jr-"  Fire  (of  Hell)  rather 
than  Shame,"— is  equally  condemned  by  the 
Koranist.  The  Gustakhi  (insolence)  of  Fate 
is  the  expression  of  Umar-i-Khayyam  (St. 
XXX ) :  — 


What,  without  asking  hither  hurried  whence? 
And,  without  asking  whither  hurried  hence ! 

Oh  many  a  cup  of  this  forbidden  wine 
Must  drown  the  memory  of  that  insolence.    - 

Soofistically,  the  word  means  "the  coquetry 

of  the  beloved  one,"  the  divinas  particula 

auras.  And  the  sedion  ends  with  Pope's:— 

He  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  b  in  the  right. 


CONCLUSION 


Here  the  Haji  ends  his  pradical  study  of 
mankind.  The  image  of  Destiny  playing  with 
men  as  pieces  is  a  view  common  amongst 
Easterns.  His  idea  of  wisdom  is  once  more 
Pope's:  — 

And  all  our  knowledge  is  ourselves  to  know. 

(Essay  IV.  398.) 

Regret,/,  e.  repentance,  was  one  of  the  forty- 
two  deadly  sins  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians. 
"Thou  shalt  not  consume  thy  heart,"  says 
the  Ritual  of  the  Dead,  the  negative  justifica- 
tion of  the  soul  or  ghost  ( Lepsius  "Alteste 
TextedesTotdenbuchs").Wehaveborrowed 
competitive  examination  from  the  Chinese; 
and,  in  these  morbid  days  of  weak  introspec- 
tion and  retrosped;ion,we  might  learn  wisdom 
from  the  sturdy  old  Khemites.When  he  sings 
"Abjure  the  Why  and  seek  the  How,"  he  re- 
fers to  the  old  Scholastic  diflFerence  of  the 
Demonstratio  propter  quid  {why  is  a  thing?),  as 
opposed  to  Demonstratio  quia  [i.e.  that  a  thing 
is).  The  "great  Man"  shall  end  with  becom- 
ing deathless,  as  Shakespeare  says  in  his  noble 
sonnet:  — 

And  Death  once  dead,  there 's  no  more  dying  then ! 

Like  the  great  Pagans,  the  Haji  holds 
that  man  was  born  good,  while  the  Christian, 
"tormented  by  the  things  divine," cleaves  to 


the  comforting  dodtrine  of  innate  sinfulness. 
Hence  the  universal  tenet, that  man  should  do 
good  in  order  to  gain  by  it  here  or  hereafter; 
the  "  enlightened  selfishness,"  that  says.  Ad 
well  and  get  compound  interest  in  a  future 
state.  The  allusion  to  the  "Theist-word"  ap- 
parently means  that  the  votaries  of  a  personal 
Deity  must  believe  in  the  absolute  foreknowl- 
edge of  the  Omniscient  in  particulars  as  in 
generals.  The  Rule  of  Law  emancipates  man ; 
and  its  exceptions  are  the  gaps  left  by  his  ig- 
norance. The  wail  over  the  fallen  flower,  etc., 
reminds  us  of  the  Pulambal(  Lamentations)  of 
the  Anti-Brahminical  writer,  "  Pathira-Giri- 
yar."  The  allusion  to  Maya  is  from  Das 
Kabir:- 

Maya  mare,  na  man  mare,  mar  mar  gaya  sarir. 

Illusion  dies,  the  mind  dies  not  though  dead  and 
gone  into  flesh. 

Nirwana,  I  have  said,  is  partial  extindlion  by 
being  merged  in  the  Supreme,  not  to  be  con- 
founded with  Pari-nirwana  or  absolute  anni- 
hilation. In  the  former  also,  dying  gives  birth 
to  a  new  being,  the  embodiment  of  karma 
(deeds),  good  and  evil,  done  in  the  countless 
ages  of  transmigration. 

Here  ends  my  share  of  the  work.  On  the 
whole  it  has  been  considerable.  I  have  omitted. 


[51] 


NOTES 

as  has  been  seen,  sundry  stanzas,  and  I  have  was  the  Bahr  'Tawil {long  verse),  I  thought 
changed  the  order  of  others.  The  text  has  it  advisable  to  preserve  that  peculiarity,  and  to 
nowhere  been  translated  verbatim;  in  fad:,  a  fringe  it  with  the  rough,  unobtrusive  rhyme 
familiar  European  turn  has  been  given  to  of  the  original, 
many  sentiments  which  were  judged  too  Ori- 
ental. As  the  metre  adopted  by  Haji  Abdu  Vive,  valeque ! 


[52] 


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